


Ding-Dong, the Witch is Dead

by LadyJane_BBJFE



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault of a Minor, M/M, a LOT of alcohol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:55:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24917953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyJane_BBJFE/pseuds/LadyJane_BBJFE
Summary: Brian's mother dies.  Brian copes.
Relationships: Ben Bruckner/Michael Novotny, Brian Kinney/Justin Taylor (Queer as Folk)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written in 2007 or something like that; so when you read that Justin plans to "stop by the video store to pick up a movie" please do not ask in the comments what the hell I'm writing about. It was a thing, back in the day. Lol. 
> 
> I'm also posting fics I haven't read in years because coronavirus lock-down has taken me on a weird sentimental journey back through LJ and I figured I maybe ought to put up some more of my old fics. I tossed up a bunch of tags for this one, but I did not close read it, so if you would like me to include any additional warnings or tags, please just let me know in the comments, because I'm including only a few off the top of my head. I'll do my best to include more if I think it necessary as it goes along, and of course, as recommended.

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead - Chapter I

The banging on the door made Justin jump, so that the charcoal he held skipped the paper, across a drawing that was forming itself into curtains, turning a gentle rounding with the incoming breeze into a slashing scar. “Shit!” he exclaimed. His attempt to use the soft medium had actually seemed to be working well, and he loved working in curves. Curving sweeps didn’t bother his hand so much, straight slashes did (go figure), and not a second before, the image was forming so that the curtains on the page were looking soft, floating, as if the wind were really in them. And then the knock, loud through the quiet, a jump in all of his nerves, and a slashing line in the middle of the paper. And the wind-swelled charcoal imagery turned into just a white and black mess of a ruined project. Thank god he hadn’t been working on it too long.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Justin muttered as he walked across the loft to open the door. This damn well better not be Michael. Or maybe it should be, then he could take out his frustration. He and Michael seemed to be settling into a weird sibling-type rivalry. Mostly, they got along. A lot of times they didn’t, but they seemed to actually acknowledge that without much rancor. Or, Michael didn’t take as many shots at him, and Justin didn’t just ignore Michael so much anymore. 

But it wasn’t Michael, he saw, as soon as he pulled open the door. 

“Come on in Claire,” he said, standing aside to let her walk in. 

She didn’t, just stood there and eyed him through red-rimmed eyes. “I’m looking for Brian. Is he here?” 

“Should be on his way…” Justin suggested, holding the door as he gestured she come in.

She moved in carefully, never looking away. He slid the door shut and walked over to the kitchen to wash his hands. 

“I’m sorry, this is still my brother’s loft, isn’t it? Brian Kinney?” She stood, slouching, staring at him.

Justin dried his hands on a paper towel, and threw it out before turning back around. “Yup, it sure is. You don’t remember me, do you?” 

She stared at him. “Vaguely…” Then her eyes widened. “The bracelet.” If possible, her face went redder, hiding the blotches as the crimson spread to cover the pale splotches beneath her eyes, across the skin of her neck.

Justin shrugged. “It was a while ago. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Yeah, I suppose my brother has whiskey. Is that what you drink when your mom dies?” And she burst out crying.

Oh, shit. Justin stared at her, not too well versed in dealing with hysterical women. Then what she’d said sunk in. Well. Shit again. Brian’s mom was dead. 

He took out a glass, and then reached to the cabinet where they kept the spare bottle, and poured her a shot, neat. “Here,” he said, pushing the glass across the counter.

“Thanks…” She gulped it, gestured for more.

He poured, and said, “I’m sorry, Claire.”

“Why should you be sorry? She’s not your mother. You didn’t know her.” She glared at him, then burst into tears again. 

“I’m sorry you’re dealing with such a loss,” Justin clarified, struck yet again, as he was every time he dealt with Brian’s family, at the levels of caution these people required. It was like walking through a minefield. 

“Yeah, well,” Claire returned. “What’s your name again?”

“Justin.”

“I guess my mom didn’t know about you.”

“Not really,” Justin evaded. He wasn’t going to tell Claire that he’d sort of been responsible for outing Brian to his mother. So he had officially met her, for about 10 shocked seconds. But he hadn’t lied; Joan knew nothing of Brian’s relationship with him. She hadn’t wanted to know. 

There was an awkward silence, as Claire swirled the liquid in her glass. 

“How’s John doing?” Justin asked. He hoped the kid had clued in. A long shot, but nonetheless…

Claire snorted. “What do you care?” She took another sip, not looking at him.

“Why don’t I try to find out where Brian is?” Justin cautiously stepped backward, keeping an eye on her and getting some distance before turning his back. He moved across the loft toward his cell phone, next to the easel at the far end of the room. 

Claire called after him, “Knowing him, he’s probably off having fun. Try the baths. He wasn’t at Vanguard, I tried there. Apparently he doesn’t work there anymore. Oh, I’m sorry, you do know all this, don’t you?” She sure as hell didn’t sound sorry. 

Justin bit his lower lip, picked up his phone and hit the speed dial. He couldn’t resist, watching her face as he bit off, “Yeah, Claire, I probably know a lot more about my partner than you do.” Her shocked expression as she finally turned her gaze onto him with that piece of news almost made him smile. Almost. He actually already regretted giving her any information about him and Brian. 

“I’ve had a for shit day, you better be naked and waiting,” Brian greeted him, his voice laced with static. The connection at Kinnetik was clear; Justin assumed he was driving, and not at Woody’s. Or elsewhere. What a bitch, he didn’t need to have the idea that Brian was at the baths planted into his imagination right now. Not that it really mattered, but still.

“Sorry your day’s rotten, and I’m even sorrier I’m not going to make it any better …”

“Where are you? I’m pulling into the parking garage, but I can get to where your ass is, just tell me.” 

Again, Justin was reminded of how other people sucked, reminded to remind himself not to let anyone else influence his feelings, especially where Brian was concerned. Brian wasn’t at the baths. He didn’t go much anymore, if at all, anyway. But once people had an idea of who you were, who you could be, SHOULD be, in their minds, often they held on with teeth. Especially those with marked insecurities. 

“I’m at the loft,” he told Brian. “And so is Claire.”

Silence. Then, “Fuck. What does she want?” 

“Just come home.”

“Can’t you just tell me?” 

Justin heard the car door slam over the phone line. He glanced over at Claire, whose back was to him as she sat herself on one of the stools at the kitchen counter, and reached for the whiskey. He dropped his voice. “Uh… I’m afraid she set me off just a little…”

“What, you tell her we were married?” 

Frightening how close Brian came to the mark. Of course, he figured way into the extreme, but was right along the right lines. “Just used the ‘partner’ word.”

“Should have told her we were married, piss her off that her fucked up brother’s queer relationship would last longer than her husband did.” 

Oh, well hell, Brian was in a good mood. Damn it, didn’t Mrs. Kinney have to ruin things even from beyond the grave. A final manipulative twist. 

“I’m on my way up, give me 30 seconds.” And he hung up. 

“Brian’s on the way,” Justin called to Claire, and she nodded but didn’t turn around. 

After a very awkward couple of minutes, during which Justin slowly took the sheet off of the easel and crumpled it up thoroughly, replacing it with a clean piece of paper, the door slid open and Brian entered. He glanced over at his sister, and dropped his briefcase, then shrugged his jacket off. “Claire,” he said to his sister, as she turned to him. He cocked an eyebrow, seeing her bloodshot eyes. “What, did your demon spawn pick on the wrong man this time? Let me guess, you need bail money.” He moved into the loft, slammed the door shut, and shrugged his jacket off his shoulders. He looked over at Justin, who was hovering in place, not quite sure what to do. “Hey,” Brian nodded. “No need to be coy just because we have company, get your ass over here.” 

“Brian…” Justin moved across the space, not sure Brian’s obvious desire to bug the shit out of his sister was something he should participate in. “Let me take that for you.” He reached for Brian’s jacket, but Brian grabbed him by the waist and that mouth that Justin marveled at every time it touched his own, captured his lower lip in a searing connection, the tip of his tongue reaching out to run along sensitive flesh that tingled in response. He bit back a moan and commanded his dick down (lot of good that did!), then reached up with a hand and pushed against Brian’s chest, moving him off.

Justin couldn’t help but smile slightly, accompanying that with an eye roll to which Brian responded by twitching his eyebrows briefly upward. They both turned to look at Claire, who was turning redder than she already was, glaring at them. “Brian, can you cut it out? Mom’s dead.” And then, again, she sobbed, bit it back. “Mom’s dead.” 

Brian froze, and Justin felt his hand tighten on his waist. He gently took the jacket, and tried to disengage himself to go hang it up in the closet. But Brian held him firmly in place, against his side, and stared at his sister. “What, did she fall down drunk and hit her head?”

Claire abruptly stopped sobbing and gaped at him. “Who told you?”

Brian laughed humorlessly. “Oh, that’s just great. Have another drink, Claire. Better yet, give me one.” He released his jacket to Justin’s care, and moved into the kitchen to grab himself a glass and pour a healthy shot, which he downed. Justin sighed, and moved away. 

“Why didn’t you just call me?”

“Is it something you’d want to hear on the phone?” Claire answered. She sighed. “We have to talk about this, I didn’t want to take the risk you’d hang up on me. Or not even listen to me past my voice.”

“Yeah, well, if Justin hadn’t been here, you wouldn’t even be let in the door. You should be grateful my partner’s much better mannered than I.” He lifted his gaze, instinctively searching out Justin’s form. 

“You can’t blame me for trying to protect my son…”

“Can’t I!?” Brian slammed the glass back down. “You didn’t even ask me what the fuck happened, you just assumed…”

“Can you blame me? Your *partner* is little more than a child himself…”

“I’m 21,” Justin replied, coming down the stairs from the bedroom. “Do you want some privacy?” This last was not directed at Claire. Fuck what she wanted.

“God no,” Brian replied, staring at his sister. “I want you to come over here.” Justin moved over, uncertain. Claire glanced away, embarrassed by her remark, on being confronted by the man she had just insulted. “Claire, this is Justin. Justin, this is Claire.”

“We’ve met.”

“Not officially. You have this tendency, dear sister, in the grand Kinney style, to delude yourself with your own fucked up view of everything. Say hello, he’s the closest thing to a brother-in-law you’ll have. So it’s a wash, basically, lose one relation, gain another.”

“Only you,” Claire answered, her voice low and deadly, sounding in this moment terribly and horridly like her mother, “could make a joke at a time like this.” 

Brian raised his eyebrow, not noticing that Justin’s eyes had widened with his last pronouncement. Justin so did not want Claire to consider him a relation. He knew Brian only said it to piss her off, and he certainly wasn’t going to bring the point up now. But hell, he hadn’t been around Brian all this time without learning a thing or two, and he mentally filed the comment away.

“Who said it was a joke?” Brian replied. He shrugged it off, then, and continued, “So, she’s dead. Not a lot I can do about it.”

“There is so things you can do. You think I’m planning the funeral alone? It’s bad enough I had to go identify the body at the hospital not two hours ago…” She stopped mid-stream, and started to hyperventilate. Justin moved to the sink, filled a glass with water, and returned to hand it to her. She grabbed the glass and gulped at it. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you just want me to pay for it.” Brian stared at her, wishing Justin had just let her pass out, given him a break for a couple of minutes. 

“Can you? I called Vanguard, what, you lose your job?” 

Justin moved away, and leaned back against the far counter in the sink, studying the tension in Brian’s back. For sure, Justin had had his own family issues, but the venom here was simply… sad. He moved forward, put his hand on Brian’s waist, felt him relax slightly. “Mother didn’t tell you then?” Brian asked, moving his hand below the counter surface where Claire couldn’t see, and cupping his palm around Justin’s left ass cheek, pressing his fingertips into his flank. Claire just stared, waiting. “I opened my own advertising company,” Brian said, and while the edge of anger was still there, Justin heard the pride there as well. Buried, protected, deep down. But there nonetheless.

Claire snorted. “What do you advertise, sex shops? Bet that’s a smash.” Derision dripped scorn in every word.

“Why don’t we get to the point,” Justin intervened, feeling the sudden complete stillness in Brian’s body where it came in contact with his own, and feeling a sudden ache blossom within himself. He knew exactly the nerve Claire had struck in her brother, and Justin’s anger over her insulting him was swept aside in the face of a much more painful sadness. “Claire, have you contacted a funeral home? That’s the first step, isn’t it?”

“So you see,” Brian said quietly, after a long pause in which the silence filled the spaces between them, “the *child* is the most adult person here.”

Claire reluctantly looked up from the spot on the counter she had been staring at intently, looking up at Justin. “No, I haven’t.” 

“Where is… your mom?” 

Brian’s hand shifted higher, clenching Justin’s hip. He seemed content to let Justin deal with Claire. 

“Allegheny General.”

“Okay, why doesn’t Brian handle contacting the funeral home, and you can handle contacting your relatives. And then you can call him tomorrow morning, so you can meet to go to the funeral home together.”

Claire seemed much calmer, now that someone had taken charge. “I’ll contact Father Tom, Mom loved him, she’d want him to perform the service. And he can make arrangements with the church.” 

Justin sighed. Thank god, they seemed to have exited the minefield. 

“You all set, then?” Brian spoke up, releasing Justin, and moving to slide open the door, not so subtly commanding she go. Claire stood, slightly wobbly.

“You want me to call a cab?” Justin asked.

“No, I have my car,” Claire answered. “I only had two drinks.” 

That’s just great, Brian thought, wondering how large the drinks were. And how many she’d had before she got to his place. At this point, though, he didn’t give a shit. He just wanted her out. 

As she left, before Brian could shut the door, Claire turned around, offering a parting shot. “I hope you have more respect than you did at Daddy’s funeral. And if you have any respect for the dead, you’ll come by yourself.”

Brian slammed the loft door shut. Then he leaned up against it, resting his forehead against its cool surface. 

Justin leaned on his arms, against the bar’s surface. “*Are* you going to go to the funeral?”

“What, after I undoubtedly pay for it?” 

“Why subject yourself to anymore of that shit?”

Brian turned around, leaned his back against the door, and studied the concern in Justin’s face. “If your Dad died, would you go to his funeral?” 

Justin was silent for a long moment, but then he said, “I’d go. To support Molly and my mom.”

“What if they couldn’t be there? Total hypothetical, just go with it, what if?’

Justin compressed his lips. He knew his answer wouldn’t change. 

Brian read the affirmative answer in his eyes. “Why? Even though I’d be telling you to forget him, put it behind you. Move on, don’t look back.”

Justin looked away. “He’s my father. I wouldn’t be mourning his hatred of me, I’d be mourning what I’d lost. I guess that deserves to be marked, one last time. There’s like a black hole in me where that relationship is supposed to be.”

“And even the great Brian Kinney can’t fill it?” Brian’s voice was mocking.

Justin moved over, placed his hand on Brian’s chest. “If anyone could fill it, it would be you. But it doesn’t work that way. So okay, I get it.” He took Brian’s hand, led him across the room to the futon in the sitting area, lay him down, took off his shoes and socks, and then stretched out next to him, propping himself up on his elbow, looking down at Brian’s face. The other man was staring up at the ceiling. He did not have long to wait for Brian to continue with the point he didn’t really have to make. But Brian surprised him, adding information he hadn’t considered. 

“Good choice of words, Mr. brilliant Artiste. I wanted someone to fill that black hole. When I was fourteen, there was Michael and his Mom. It’s taken me a long, long time to figure out what you already know. No one can really fill the void left when you don’t get your needs met in the beginning. Doesn’t work that way. You miss out on a good childhood, the vacuum always sucks.” He turned his head to face Justin, their eyes, mouths, inches apart. He could feel the younger man’s breath on his skin, the piercing blue trying to stare into the heart that felt it had cracked open, just a little, for just a minute. 

“But you can build up other relationships, so the initial loss doesn’t hurt so much.”

Brian smiled, rolled over on top of him, then relaxed, and just lay there. He buried his head in Justin’s neck. Not seeing his words received made talking easier. “More likely, other relationships get sucked into the great blackness. Michael did. I’ve been a real shit to him over the years.”

“Brian…”

Brian shook his head, his cheek causing Justin’s flesh to prickle, in a good way. “Yeah, I was, and Debbie knew, all along. She knew exactly what was going on there, she’s pretty smart.” 

“She loves you. We all do.” 

Brian didn’t reply, merely swept his lips against the side of Justin’s neck. Justin began to feel the blood surge through his veins, a slow but strong surge. Good god, what this man did to him. He was supposed to be providing comfort, and all his body could think about was sex. He tried to focus back on Brian’s words, despite Brian’s left foot moving against his ankle, a thigh flexing against his groin. Brian seemed to be attempting to actually talk, but his body instinctively moved to stop all conversation. Justin had no idea which signal to respond to. This was fucking ridiculous. He started laughing.

Brian raised himself on his elbows. As his torso lifted, his groin pressed into Justin’s stomach, his growing erection digging into the flesh. “What’s funny?”

“I think your body is trying to outsmart your honest-to-god attempt to communicate with me,” Justin moaned in reply. “You are a living, breathing self-contradiction.”

Brian smirked. “Great. I don’t even need to try. You see the crap I put people through?”

“You sure didn’t put Michael or Debbie through this…” Justin placed his hand on Brian’s side, held his body in place as he pushed his stiff cock up between Brian’s legs. The soft material of his sweat pants pushed back against him, but he was able to rub himself against the soft cotton, even as Brian’s strong thighs closed around him. He moaned, low in his chest. 

“No, much worse, continual delay of gratification of any sort.” Brian brought his hand against Justin’s rib cage, holding him down, Justin’s erection held still. 

“Brian…”

“Greedy little thing, aren’t you?” He was teasing, and again, Justin didn’t know what he should do to best respond. He knew what his body was urging. 

“You’re distracting yourself,” Justin pointed out. “And you’re trying to distract me.”

“I’d say it’s working,” Brian replied, leaning down and catching Justin’s full lips in his own. He didn’t move any other part of his body, and Justin could feel a pulse throb through the tip of his dick, surging desire to weep from the head. He pulled his mouth away. “Brian…”

“Justin…” Brian leaned down, leading with his tongue, and just licked at Justin’s top lip, stroking the tip across the very red expanse, moving to the corner of Justin’s mouth, caressing the sensitive edges, but never quite dipping in. Justin received Brian’s tongue passively, his breath coming in short, shallow pants. He felt Brian’s penis slowly growing to its full size, hard against his stomach. Then the weight was off him, and Brian bent down over Justin’s body, his hands slipping the sweat pants off, down Justin’s legs. Their eyes stayed open, on each other’s faces, as Brian reached under the couch to retrieve the supply box. He pulled the zipper of his pants down, rocked back on his ankles, spread Justin’s legs, lifted the ankles over his shoulders, preparing Justin and himself. The fine silk of Brian’s Armani shirt whispered under Justin’s Achilles tendons, and for a moment he had a flash of them from a distance, Brian in full dress, his cock jutting outward, moving into the lubricated opening at the apex of Justin’s exposed lower half. Then Brian pushing in, his weight settling down, the familiar, so familiar feeling of stretch as he took Brian against the back of his legs, and into his body, the silk of the Armani shirt which Justin reached up to unbutton, even as Brian leaned forward, settling downward, his forearms cradling the sides of Justin’s head, his eyes closing, and Justin knew he was retreating, retreating, away from the inner core he had allowed to be exposed for just a brief moment. Justin pushed the shirt aside, pushing it back so that his cock rubbed now against the skin of Brian’s torso, equally silky; he knew that cum on this shirt would not be appreciated when brain matter took over once again. Brian stopped, his cock firmly ensconced, expanding, filling Justin’s body, forearms around Justin’s head, weight resting on Justin’s thighs, their stomachs pressed up against each other. So familiar, this experience so familiar it was like a physical location, at home in each other. Justin stared up into Brian’s face, at the swollen, lush lips, the closed eyes, the nostrils on the fine nose the only mobile feature as they expanded as breath was drawn in, exploded out. He could feel Brian’s chest move more rapidly against his as their breathing picked up, the pulse of blood swelling and retreating beneath the skin with the tide of sex within them, even as Brian held his limbs utterly still, but pushed, so slightly, firmly, forward, back. Justin felt his penis slide against skin as he responded to the ebb and flow, and with the slight press of the organ within him, the pressure against the outer ring, his breath quickened to shallow pants, he was unable to endure the delay, his cock twitching, his thigh muscles involuntarily flexing.

Brian’s hand moved down, settled on his hip bone, holding him still, even as he rocked forward. “Sh…” 

“Oh, my god, Brian…” Justin moaned, as he felt Brian’s cock swell as it pulled back, then pressed harder down to completely fill him. Justin’s hamstrings flexed automatically, his toes curling, a fine trembling racing over him and pushing the sensation up to gather at the spot at the bottom of his groin as he lost control of his body’s responses, the orgasm taking him, and he came hard, shooting cum up against Brian’s torso, against his own chest. Brian settled onto his body, riding the waves of the throbbing muscles that clenched around him, and he came down for a final hard push against Justin who had gripped against him, seeking to be filled, just before teeth clamped onto the muscle at the base of Justin’s neck, hard enough to break skin, low moans muffled, lower bodies pressed together, Brian climax ripped through him so that his stomach and groin drew up and his torso bowed upward, groin pressed hard against Justin’s lower body, mouth firmly attached at his shoulder, the rest of him swept off the other man by the force of the sexual explosion sweeping through him, breath stopped, cum shooting out of his body, holding him there, frozen in its grasp. Then the spasms of aftershocks, fast and hard, slowing as he released Justin’s shoulder from his bite, drew in a long, ragged breath, and collapsed, exhaling slowly. Justin dropped his legs, moving them around his lover’s hips. Brian licked at the puncture marks that indented the skin underneath his lips, then rested his cheek on Justin’s chest, his thumb caressing the sore spot. “You okay?” he asked. 

“That was fucking amazing,” Justin replied, not answering the question, silly as it was. Brian rested for a moment, before pulling out and rolling off, and Justin stretched, and pulled off his shirt. They lay there a while, idly touching, quiet. 

The silence broke with Justin’s question. “You sure? I mean, going to the funeral. You sure you want to do that?”

“What, and miss seeing that cunt buried deep, shut up for all eternity? You kidding?”

“Well, okay,” Justin answered, rising to his feet. “If there’s anything I can do…”

“Actually, there is.”

Justin paused on his way to the shower, not having expected that. He looked back. Brian raised one eyebrow, and continued, “You ARE planning to stand by your grieving partner on his most difficult day?” His tongue poked into his cheek, and Justin stared, not having expected that question. 

But the look told him all he needed to know. “And if said partner’s support happens to completely appall and discomfit the entire family and friends of the dead woman…”

“Grief is obviously not allowing the poor orphan boy to think straight,” Brian answered, pulling off his shirt, and shucking his pants. “Shall we?” he asked, gesturing to the shower. 

Justin rolled his eyes. “Even though your sister said, if you had any respect for the dead, you’d leave me out of it?”

“Huh,” Brian responded, shoving him in front of him, tossing his clothes on the bed, “I do hope she remembers that comment when we show up.”


	2. Chapter II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to confess: I don't really read sex scenes anymore when I read fic, I'll skim them for the plot points (I HEAR YOU LAUGHING AT ME but no, seriously). So, basically: I didn't re-read this, and I wrote it like 14 years ago or something. So if you do read this and notice that there's anything anatomically impossible happening, let me know in the comments, and I'll wade back in to fix it.

II

He woke up, emerging from sleep as if from a cocoon, burrowed somewhere in the warmth of the sheets, the pillow cradling the crown of his head. He opened his eyes, slowly. Something was wrong.

It was early; he could tell, earlier than he usually awoke. The light was thin, delicate. The sun might not even have risen, just sending the first pink blush into the sky. 

No, nothing was wrong. But something, something was off. 

He drew a deep breath into his lungs, and reached up to take the pillow from where it was bunched between his head and the wall, and placed it under his cheek. He felt Justin shift slightly, detecting Brian's movements, a warm hand coming to rest against his thigh where Brian's leg intertwined with the slightly smaller one. Justin’s features evened out as he slipped back into the depths of sleep. 

Oh, right. Joan was dead. 

He watched the features of his boy, his man, lover, whatever you wanted to call him. His. How the fuck did that happen? Despite all of it. Despite himself. Despite that witch. Despite his life. 

Damn, he really was beautiful. 

And she would have kept him from this, if she could. Kept him from this man, this moment, in more ways than just condemning him to the pits of hell.

She would always have denied him this, denied him who he was, denied him from ever reaching this moment where he lay, right now. He drew a deep breath, let it out. And now she was dead. So maybe there was a God. He watched Justin sleep, the pale skin against the expansive whiteness of the sheets, the blonde hair and fair features cradled in the soft pillow. So fucking beautiful.

He moved his arm from where it had been curled up against his chest, and placed his hand on the back of Justin’s, sliding his palm lightly and slowly up the forearm, feeling the tickle of the baby-fine hair, up to the elbow, smooth, and damn well should be, his little king was taking after him all right, bathing the ol’ elbows nightly in product straight from Israel, nothing like the Dead Sea salts for exfoliation… Brian’s lips drew upward slightly, laughing at himself. Yeah, he did it, though only where no one could see him, here in this bed, the next best thing to alone, or, if he were being honest with himself, a thing that was better than being alone, being free to indulge himself fully with his thoughts with Justin asleep next to him, knowing he could stay here for a little while anyway. God, he so did not want to get out of this bed. He did not want to deal with this day. Never. Just, damn, stay here. Keep Justin here with him. His. 

His hand had lingered around the skin at Justin’s elbow, and now he moved up the biceps, over the back, and he watched the sheet being drawn away as his fingers found the smooth contours of the low back, and rising up a hip, gently down a thigh. 

Justin was awake. He didn’t need to look up to know he was being watched now. Brian shifted forward, his head dipping as he pressed his lips against a rib, tracing his tongue against its outline, then moved up to the chest, up for now, Justin was especially ticklish in the morning, closed his lips over a puckering nipple and drew it into his mouth. He could feel Justin’s response in a slow hardening against his stomach, and rolled him onto his back, rolling on top of him. 

Justin stared up at him, eyes half open, mouth dropping open. They kissed, slowly and for a long time, tongues gently touching lips and mouths, touching and nothing more. 

Brian dropped his thighs around Justin’s hips, and sat up. Justin watched him, his eyes drooping lower as Brian rocked against him, his dick rubbing itself against Justin’s stomach. He reached over to the supplies they kept near the bed, and took out a condom, and lube. Justin watched, waited for Brian to shift his position, to ready him for entry. He was still half asleep; Brian seemed fine with his relative lack of motion, all but the rise below. 

But Brian didn’t shift, instead, he closed his eyes, and continued to rock, ripping the condom wrapper open with his teeth. He reached behind himself, and, blind, he rolled it down Justin’s suddenly absolutely full erection. The lube was snapped open, squeezed into Brian’s hand. He reached behind himself, and Justin watched Brian’s shoulder move as he ministered to himself. 

Justin felt oddly breathless, for all that his lungs were laboring the air. He heard Brian’s breathing matching his, loud in his ear as his lover bent forward, down to kiss that spot at the base of his neck just over his collarbone that never failed to send an electric shock straight down his body to the corresponding spot between his legs just under his scrotum, and Brian was settling down against him, pushing, a slight shift backward and a sudden gasp in his ear, and Justin was inside, the groan torn out of him as Brian’s hands settled onto his torso, pushing himself back and down, rocking again. Brian picked up Justin’s hand, brought it to the cock thrusting against his stomach, the cum leaking out and providing natural lubricant just when Justin thought he might need some help. The side of his thumb slid beneath the head as Brian’s hand stayed on top of his, keeping Justin’s palm still, only his thumb moving, Brian alone rocking them both to satisfaction.

His climax, when it came, was not the usual intense shot into the stratosphere; it felt as though he were surrounded by the sun, filling every cell and beginning to glow especially warm where Brian’s body met his, and he was lifted gently but firmly upward, his body tensing with the rise of heat within it. “God… Brian…” he gasped as the sensation that had taken his dick did not end, but lifted him further up, a never-ending arc, the steadily intensifying… and then, there, holy shit, suddenly, shooting upward, there, there, holy shit, nothing could feel like *this*… fuck fuck fuck fuck holy shit…

When he became aware of the man on top of him again, Brian was tracing one finger in the liquid covering his stomach. He must have cum while Justin was blind, deaf and dumb to the world, even to the man bringing him to that phenomenal climax. He looked up, into the hazel eyes that seemed more green. Maybe it was the light. Brian smiled down at him. “Good?”

“Bwah.” 

“Bwah?” Brian’s smile widened slightly, and he leaned forward, extracting Justin from him, taking the condom off and dropping it on the floor. He rolled Justin onto his side, facing away, and fit himself into his back. 

“Ick.” 

“My, we’re monosyllabic this morning,” Brian replied, pulling back and wiping away the offending substance with the corner of the sheet. They needed to be washed anyway. He moved back to where his body fit so well against Justin’s, like pieces of a puzzle. Shower, he thought. Not that he was looking for ways to delay facing daylight.

“It’s too early to talk,” Justin replied, enjoying Brian’s hand moving on his arm, his lips touching his shoulder. His voice was husky with the hour.

“Mmm… I don't suppose we can just stay here?”

But as soon as the question was asked, they both knew. Of course they couldn't. And they both knew why they rather would. Justin turned his head. "It's still early,” he said, meeting Brian’s gaze, and was rewarded with a hard, long kiss that was happy to agree.


	3. Chapter III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian and Claire talk to the funeral director. Michael and Justin talk to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Michael is a good friend in this fic. If I went back to rewrite all of my fics, Mikey would probably always be a good friend (I love good!BFF stories). I'd cut out all of the whining and let Mikey soar on his loyalty and dorkery. He and Justin would bond and bedevil Brian by watching too much Star Trek at the loft (Voyager, especially). Brian wouldn't be a holy Object of Lust (TM) for everyone everywhere; I would safely ignore that ridiculous construct from the show and set Mikey free. Hindsight, it's 20/20.

III

“You want me to go with you?” 

Brian glanced across the room, taking in Justin’s hesitation. He shook his head. “No, Claire’s meeting me at the funeral home.”

“I suppose you don’t need more trouble.” Justin picked up his backpack, made sure the supplies he needed for his morning class were in it. Art history, thank goodness, no bulky portfolio to shove awkwardly into the Corvette. He definitely had to get his own car... Well, now was not the time to address that issue. He walked past where Brian was perched on one of the seats at the kitchen counter, dropping his bag on the way so that it was close enough to the door to grab on his way out. 

“No,” Brian replied, trailing his hand across Justin’s side as he passed him, “*you* don’t need the trouble.” 

Justin opened the refrigerator door and took a water bottle to bring with him to school. He turned back around. “It’s no trouble, Brian. I want to help. Is there anything I can do? Besides keeping Claire off balance. But that’s not *doing* anything, that’s just existing.”

“Unfortunately, Claire will find a way to act out regardless. Too good an opportunity to mount the stage of martyrdom.” He stared off into space for a second, but was aware that Justin was looking at him intently, and snapped his attention back. No need to descend into the morass of melancholy, a bog of self-involvement just waiting to swallow one up, a state his family seemed prone to. He hated that. “Actually, there is something.” Justin raised his eyebrows, waited. Still, Brian hesitated. He wasn’t sure he should ask this, but… “You could stop by Red Cape after you get out of class and tell Michael. He should know. I might not have time to tell him today.” He looked away, but Justin knew the real reason. Brian didn’t want to deal with the outpouring of “I’m so sorry!” that was sure to accompany the announcement, the shock, the expressions of sadness he could not himself feel. But he did want the people in his life to know. Justin wasn’t sure if Brian wanted the support, or if it was Brian’s acknowledgement of a certain form of decorum that went along with these major life (death) events, even though his natural inclination was to simply get this over with, with as little attention as possible. But Justin did understand that despite all their friends knew of Brian, all they knew of his feelings, they didn’t really get it. Shit, Justin didn’t, but he understood that he didn’t have to. We may be connected to each other, Justin thought, but connection happens through vocalization of feelings. Not through having the same ones. And Brian was definitely a different breed of cat altogether. Not a domestic by any means. 

“You sure you want me to?”

“I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t.”

“Of course, I’ll tell him, if that’s what you want. You want me to tell Lindsay, too?”

Brian flipped his cell phone open, fingered one of the buttons. “I forgot about her. I’ll call her later, probably will have to put off that dinner she wanted to have with us.” He flipped the phone shut again, deciding to put off calling Cynthia. She’d probably be calling him anyway, as soon as she got to the office and he wasn’t there, and then didn’t show up after nine. She’d call, all worried, that note of concern. Brian shrugged mentally. He knew it was perverse of him, but some part of him did not despise that tone, hearing it spoken to him in someone else’s voice. He hated that he did not always despise the concern directed at him. He’d never admit it out loud. But he would let Cynthia call him. 

“Oh, right. Okay. You sure?”

Brian smiled thinly. “I’m always sure.” 

“Riiight…” Justin answered, pushing off the counter to leave the kitchen area. “You ready to go then?” He walked over to his bag, put the water into it, and picked it up, slinging it over his shoulder. 

“Ready, huh. I suppose I better be.” He picked his jacket from the chair back and slung it on. “We’re off...” 

***  
9:30. So here he was, with Claire, sitting in the funeral director’s office. The man had a placid, appropriately sympathetic expression set over his smooth features. Brian took in his high cheekbones, the lush lips that were consciously thinned, a slight wrinkle to the forehead so that the eyes widened ever so slightly. Not gay. Pretty annoying, in fact, although Brian supposed Claire, sobbing not so quietly in the chair next to him, appreciated the man. He was sure she liked the expression of pity he lavished on her. Shit, if Claire were like this now, what the fuck was the actual funeral going to be like? He could only imagine. He stopped thinking of the future. Just one thing at a time. First, this guy. 

“Very good, Mr. Kinney, we’ll arrange the pick up from Allegheny General, and take care of the details here. Two days of viewing, Thursday and Friday, then Saturday transport to St. Anne’s Cathedral for the service at noon and burial after.” Mr. Leslie, the funeral director, had seen who would be in charge of arrangements, and who would, most likely, be paying, as soon as these two walked in. Good thing it was the man, but it usually was, and thank god. He was trained in grieving relatives, he knew, in fact, that he was good with them, and he enjoyed his excellent reputation. But, to be honest, he much preferred the stoic relatives who seemed determined to handle business with as little fuss as possible. It was almost impossible for the over-the-top grievers to make up their minds about even the simplest things. He would never admit this, not even to his wife. Lord knows, she wouldn’t understand his resentment at how mourning people just got his goat sometimes, at least when it came to the nitty gritty of business. Now, Lydia was excellent with huge displays of grief. But then, did she have to make the arrangements, ensure payment? Oh, no!

He made a mental note to have Lydia on hand to deal with the mess sitting next to the gentleman who was making all of the decisions. Lydia thrived on the pain of others. He thought, at times, that must have been why she married him, because of the business he was in. Sometimes, it felt there could have been no other good reason. There sure seemed no reason for her to stay with him, except for money and death. His good ol’ ghoulish Lydia.

He pulled his attention back to the people sitting in front of him as Brian frowned and interjected, “Three days? Is that usual?”

Leslie shrugged. “It’s standard. I was told this is what you preferred.” And more expensive. He, of course, did not mention this.

Claire raised her head, swiped the moisture off her cheeks. “I told him when I called. Momma deserves two days of mourning. Besides, all her friends at the church, they’ll all want to stop by.”

“Joan deserves shit,” Brian shot back. “One day of viewing, Friday. Four days from now. That’ll give her relatives time to get here if they want. Service and burial Saturday.” That way those who couldn’t get out during the week could at least make the funeral. He wished he could be one of them. Shit, he wished he could skip this whole thing. Was it possible…? Nah, Claire would haunt him. Worse, Deb would never let him forget. And then there’d be Lindsay’s reproachful looks. And Michael’s concern… Nope, better to just get through this as quickly as possible. Get it over with, get on with life. 

“Why are you making this so difficult?” Claire cried. “You never loved her, I did, I was always there for her…”

“Um,” Mr. Leslie interrupted. “I understand how difficult this must be…”

“It wouldn’t be difficult if Brian, if you would just…”

“What?” Brian answered, shifting in his chair, facing his sister.

“If you could just stop being so bitter. Why do you have to hold onto your anger? Why can’t you just let it go, have some respect for the dead?”

“She never earned my respect in life, she’s not getting it just because she kicked the bucket. And anyway, Claire, just think, the less time this lasts, the less time I can embarrass you with my bitterness, the less time there is that I might actually tell people how our lives actually were spent in that house. And even, how they’ve been spent since.” 

Claire’s lips thinned, and she thought about that, remembering their father’s funeral, Brian’s languid retelling of the story of her father’s demand that their mother get an abortion when he was a mere fetus, right in the middle of the gathered friends and family. Hm. “Fine,” she finally agreed.

“How about caskets, Mr. Leslie?” Brian turned back to the funeral director and dismissed his sister, his face as placid as if there had been no argument at all, while Claire began to noisily fall apart again. 

Well, this is going to be one hell of a funeral, Leslie thought. But he only said, “We have a wide selection, if you’ll come this way…”

***  
“Hey, boy wonder,” Michael greeted Justin, finishing the sale of a stack of comics to a pimply kid who grinned back at him. The kid picked up his package, and said, “Hey, thanks, Michael, this is an awesome selection!”

“Yeah, well don’t let your mom see the second Rage issue, she’ll have my balls!” Michael called, chuckling as the kid raced out of the store, probably to dive into said issue and whack off. Michael shut the cash drawer with a thud, and grabbed the soda behind him. Taking a swig, he swallowed and said, “You know, I do love giving back to young men who so remind me of me, but even more, I love taking their money. So, what’s up with you?”

Justin looked around the store, noted that the two other people browsing the merchandise were out of hearing range, and said, “Brian’s mother died.”

“Oh…” Michael immediately registered the news, and his face dropped into a classic pose of deep sympathy, his brow wrinkling up, his eyes widening. “How?”

How? That was a good question. Strange, they really hadn’t gotten the details on that, had they? “I think she fell and hit her head. His sister wasn’t too clear, she was too busy sobbing and yelling at Brian.”

“Dyech,” Michael responded, grimacing. “Good ol’ Claire. So she brought the news by? How’s Brian doing?”

Justin shook his head. “He seemed fine when he called me half an hour ago. He and Claire are arranging the details as we speak. Apparently she’s making a fuss over coffins, wants a $15,000 model. On Brian’s tab, of course. He’s being pretty… unemotional about it. Has been since he found out.” Except he fucked himself on me this morning, hard, before I even really woke up enough to truly be there with him. That was definitely not information to be shared. Justin forced the memory back, feeling the skin around his thighs tingle. 

“Yeah, he would be, but if you could have seen him the night his dad died…” Michael glanced at Justin, cursing himself. Shit, shit, shit! Why couldn’t he ever keep his mouth shut? Right from the brain to the tongue, it was a curse. As if Justin needed reminder that he hadn’t been welcome into Brian’s life back then. “He ever tell you about that?” Michael asked, trying to let Justin know he hadn’t said what he had to exclude him from memories of the past.

Justin shrugged. “Only general things. He said it was harder than he expected. We both kind of lost our dads around the same time, in different ways, but still. He said he’d told his dad he was gay, and Jack told him he should be the one dying, not Jack. He told me the story, and his face was impassive, but there was something in his eyes… he seemed hurt, but in the non-demonstrative, unconventional way Brian is. You know.”

“Yeah, I know. The night his dad died, he was a fucking mess. Got really, really drunk. Tried to fuck me.” Oh, fuck! There he went again!

Justin’s eyebrows raised. “Really! And…”

Michael shrugged, shook his head, really annoyed at himself. “It was obvious why he was doing it. And it wasn’t because of who I was. He was trying to hurt me, share the Kinney love.”

Justin actually laughed. “Oh, hell, we’ve both been on the receiving end of that. But you said no.”

“I said no. We’re meant to be friends.” He left it at that, deciding to shut his mouth. Kept a lid on anything else he might say. For once. Ben loved his openness, and Michael didn’t have to watch himself around his husband; he could relax and just blab. Brian and Justin kept pieces of themselves closely guarded. Yup, Michael and Brian were definitely meant to be friends. Michael would have killed Brian within a couple of years, hell, months, if he had had to work as hard as he did around either of these guys sometimes; there was an edge to both of them that never allowed him to really relax. ‘Course, that was a lot of the fascination, that dark, mysterious… exhausting bullshit. Michael knew, for him, it would get real old, real quick. “So why the fuck isn’t he telling me this news himself?” The edge of anger in his voice wasn’t real, it was more thrown in there to shift the focus from this discussion, which had gotten away from the point, and fairly out of Michael’s comfort zone. “Is he afraid I’ll see him upset? He doesn’t want any of us to witness that he actually cares?”

“I’m not sure he actually does.”

“She’s his mother.” Michael’s jaw set.

Justin sighed. There was no use in trying to explain this to Michael, whose love for his mother was all-encompassing. Remembering when Michael had been on the run with Hunter, with Deb complaining that she was missing their usual, three-time-per-day talks (at least!), and the look on Brian’s face as he turned to Justin and said, “Explains a lot, doesn’t it?” Yes, it certainly did. No use trying to explain to Michael that not every woman is a natural mother, like Michael’s, like Justin’s. Some mothers eat their young.

So Justin only said, “I don’t think he’s against seeing you, Michael, I just think that he doesn’t want to have to face the looks of initial sympathy. I don’t think he knows how to deal with it. It’s not welcome, and he has enough bullshit to wade through. Plus, if I tell you, you’ll tell everyone, and then everyone will just know and we can proceed from there, without this bump in the road of pretended pain he’s not feeling because that’s what people expect. You know how he gets about expectations he doesn’t think he can live up to. There’s plenty of real pain there, but it isn’t because his mother’s dead.” 

Michael eyed the young man. “I see you’ve got your copy of the Kinney handbook back.”

“And this one’s an up-to-date edition. Just as much background material, but some nifty upgrades.” 

“Let me guess, you’ve been given the codes for access to emotional trigger points….”

“With their red labels, ‘Sensitive areas! Use only in emergency!’” 

They grinned at each other, and Michael shook his head. “What do you think? You think this is good? That she’s dead? You think it’ll be good for him?”

Justin shrugged. “I think the next few days are going to be really rough, and not for the reasons people think. But I think… you know, I hate to say it, but I think Brian’s much better off with his mother out of the picture, permanently.”

“And I get to be the spreader of the news. That’s great, you just figure I’ll blab it across town.” Michael snorted, and straightened up a comic that was leaning slightly in its place on the rack next to the counter.

“Hey, Michael, how many times has my lover tried to fuck you? What is it, as you’ve been sure to tell me, twice now? Any more sensitive topics you want to share with Brian’s life partner about the love of his life?”

Michael had to laugh at himself with that. “Yeah, fine, so I’m not one for holding information back. I guess I’ll start with my mother. She’ll be sure to bake a casserole.” 

“I guess Claire’ll appreciate that, for whoever goes to the house after the funeral.” He turned to go.

“Hey, Justin,” Michael called after him. Justin turned. “Take care of him.”

Justin smiled. “I’ll be sure to let you know if we need any help.” 

“Thanks,” Michael whispered, as the door swung shut.


	4. Chapter IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian deals with family matters. Justin helps him deal with it. Justin meets a member of Brian's family. They drink a lot of alcohol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So “Dead Alive” really is a movie directed by Peter Jackson, one of his early films. It is just as described here, and has to be seen to be believed.

IV

Brian practically growled when he entered Joan’s house without knocking, and saw John sitting in the corner of the sofa, thumbing through a comic. “Hey, where’s your mom?” 

John looked up, saw it was Brian, and looked away. “Upstairs,” he mumbled, turning back to the comic.

“Accuse any innocent relatives of molestation lately? Give ol’ grandma a stroke, didja? That how she hit the ol’ noggin’?” Okay, he was being perverse, hell, this house brought out a sickly aggressive streak. But he didn’t expect John to completely freak out. His nephew burst out crying, jumped up, pushed past Brian, and ran out the front door. Christ, the kid was what? 13? Shouldn’t he have better self-control? Did he love ol’ Joan that much? Well, he was young… and his mother was Claire.

“What did you say to him?” Claire called from the top of the stairs. “No, forget it, you know, I don’t want to know. I can’t figure out which dress to bring to the funeral home. And I want to know what you want to keep, we have to go through all this stuff.” 

“Oh, hell, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Brian muttered, following his sister up the stairs. “Claire, put her in a potato sack for all I care. You called me away from work for this?”

“It’s our mother, Brian!” Claire returned, her breath hitching, the tears falling. Damnation, it never ended. She turned into her mother’s bedroom, and gestured toward the dresses she’d laid out on the bed, blue, black… red?

“The cranberry one,” he said. He looked at his sister skeptically. His mother NEVER wore red. Joan would hate it. So, definitely. “Definitely, the cranberry.” Better not call it red, Claire might hear how wrong that word sounded. Besides, it was dark red. 

“Really? I saw it in the closet, figured it was new, maybe she was saving it for a special occasion. And this would be… would b-b-b…” 

Oh, hell. “Claire. It’s fine. The dress is fine. You did good.” He spoke patiently, as if to a child. “Is that what you called me out here for? I do have to a business to run…”

Claire swung on him, moving from grief to rage. Just like that. “You always think of yourself! Mom was right, you are so totally self-absorbed! Like I don’t have a life, like I don’t have better places to be. But there are all these *things* and we have to decide what to do with them!”

“Burn them.” Brian shrugged.

“Brian! Your baby albums? Our family photos?”

“You keep them, Claire. I don’t want anything.”

“You can’t mean that,” his sister scoffed, scooping up the two rejected dresses and hanging them back in the closet. “This is part of your life. You can’t just throw it away.” 

Brian groaned. “I do mean it. Unlike you, I can just leave things behind me, especially when they’re these things. And now I’m leaving. If you need someone to help dispose of the estate,” he almost laughed at the satiric wit in his choice of words, but figured Claire would not appreciate his being his own audience, “I’ll get my assistant to hire someone for me.”

“Yeah, you do that, just throw money at the problem, that’ll make it go away.”

Brian turned and practically hopped down the steps, feeling like he was 14 and on his way out to spend a couple of nights at Mikey’s. Getting the fuck out of this hell hole, blessed relief. “It is going away, Claire,” he thought to himself. “Far, far away…”

But first, he’d have to wade through the next three days. One more day of Claire bugging the shit out of him, then the day for viewing, then the funeral. Christ, why couldn’t they just toss her into the ground in a garbage bag? Or even better, burn her, toss the ashes out the car window as he drove away from the funeral and back to his life. But oh, no, Joan actually believed that her body needed to be preserved for the resurrection, when the Lord would raise the dead. “They don’t mean that literally, Mom,” he’d said to her when she expressed horror at his suggestion that they cremate Jack. She looked at him as if he were speaking in tongues, inspired by Satan. “Jesus will raise our bodies from the dead, Brian, where will we be if our bodies aren’t there for Him?”

Too bad Claire was around. He would definitely have burned her. He idly wondered how much it would cost him to get someone to burn the house down. 

* * * 

“Goddamn it, this is for shit! I did not order this!” Brian threw the board down on the conference table as his art people cringed in their chairs. 

“Brian, what do you want changed? I thought this was fairly up to specs,” Ted replied. He had been keeping an eye on the details of this campaign, hoping to learn more of the day-to-day workings of the business that employed him beyond the financials. He found his background as porn site operator and accountant equipped him surprisingly well to get the basic idea of the advertising business. It was all about sex and money, and an obsession with details. He was familiar with all those things.

“Yeah, you thought, I’m sure you did Ted, are you seriously questioning me? That blue is not right, I told you azure, not fucking periwinkle!”

“The second board is azure, Brian,” Gary piped up. “You asked we use both so we could see which worked better.” 

“Yeah, so YOU could see which worked better.” Brian grabbed the second board, glared down at it. 

“…and then bring you both.” 

“What, you couldn’t make the decision for yourself?” Brian glared. “Here’s how it works, you make the decision, and THEN you bring this shit to me.”

“Azure looks right to me,” Ted spoke up, hoping to draw Brian’s wrath from Gary. The kid had just started at Kinnetik that week, and he seemed to be working out pretty well. Ted did not want him quitting, or cowering in a corner, unable to work.

Brian glared at him, then glared back at the boards, then glared some more at Ted. Unfortunately, Ted had just agreed with his own opinion, so he could only growl, “Fine, whatever, if this campaign falls to shit it’s your ass, Ted. Now, about the font…” 

* * *

Justin dropped by on his way back from school. He winced as he approached Cynthia’s desk, hearing the raised voice emanating from behind the closed door to Brian’s office. 

Cynthia looked over from her conversation with Ted as Justin approached, and said, “He was at his mother’s house this morning.”

“What now?”

Cynthia shrugged. “In that mood, I ask no questions. I suggested he take a few days off, and he just said that there was no reason, that work help keep him focused and that I should mind my own business.”

At that moment, a shout penetrated the closed door to Brian’s office, and they heard a muffled, “You told me Wednesday and I fucking expect Wednesday, not Wednesday night!… Wednesday night is not Wens-Day. Wens Day, Wednesday! it’s not fucking Wens Night!” 

“Uh, I don’t really need to be here,” Ted said, firmly gripping the boards he had been fumbling with, and walking away. “Can you just make me an appointment for next week?” He nodded at Justin. 

“Coward! You know he wants that by tomorrow!” Cynthia yelled after him. She turned to Justin. “He’s been like this all week. You sure you want to go in there?”

Justin just smiled. “Yeah, give me twenty minutes, keep everyone out.” 

Cynthia gestured at him to go right in.

Brian barely glanced up from his phone call when Justin walked in. He was on his feet, his chair pushed back as if he had leapt out of it, rolling it away. He leaned on the hand that was planted on his desk, while the other hand held the phone to his ear. “How much business have we sent your way? Do you realize how much competition there is… I don’t care if you know I only hire the best, don’t try to flatter your way out of this screw up…!” 

Justin dropped his bag on the floor, circled the desk, and moved behind Brian’s chair, pushing it back to where it belonged. The chair hit the back of Brian’s legs, just at the knees, and they buckled so he sat abruptly. He frowned, looked over at Justin. “No, five o’clock is simply not acceptable, am I not being clear here?…” Justin swiveled the chair around, and dropped to his knees, reaching for Brian’s belt buckle. Brian raised an eyebrow, swatted at his hands, but Justin was nothing if not persistent, and Brian had only one hand for Justin’s two. His dick was out in no time, and Justin’s tongue set itself to work. “Uh… okay… okay, oh, Christ… What? No, uh, uh, look, fine, I guess we’re going to have to live with five, just don’t let it happen again.” He dropped the phone in the cradle, and his hands moved to wind into the blonde hair at his lap, pushing Justin’s head down, surging up into his mouth.

* * * 

“So, did you stop by because Ted and Cynthia screamed for help? Come to blow Mt. Vesuvius?” 

“Noooo,” Justin responded, his face screwed up in disgust that Brian would ever suspect such a thing. He rolled his tongue, licking the last of Brian’s cum from the back of his mouth, yummy. “You seriously think I’d play whore for them?”

“No, I thought you’d play whore for me,” Brian smirked, trying to take the edge off his question. Well, shit, he’d just been kidding, he hadn’t meant to insult his boyfriend. “That was just what I needed.” 

“Yeah, well, sometimes I just know what you need. I don’t need anyone else to tell me.”

Oh, shit, he’d really stepped in it. “You always know just what I need.”

Ah, that did it. That smile he loved so appeared across the lovely face. “Actually, I stopped by to ask if you have a movie preference. I’m stopping by the video store on the way home.”

“We’re doing a movie night?”

“Yeah, I think you could use a night of just hanging out and relaxing. No phone, no Claire, no funeral plans, just us.” 

“Hm…” That blow job had only whetted his appetite. He sighed, as if put upon. “Well, Michael sent me an email that he and Emmett were meeting at Woody’s around 9… but I suppose, if you insist…”

“He probably wants to see how you’re doing, before the whole funeral thing starts. How bout we just relax, watch a movie, and then see if we’re in the mood to go out?” 

“That sounds just about right. Fine, movies… I want something as gruesomely violent as possible, absolutely no redeeming value, no moral message, no sentimental value. Blood and guts.”

“Anything in mind?” Justin picked up his bag and moved toward the door. 

“Nope, use your imagination.” Brian turned back to his computer. Then he tossed over his shoulder, “I’ll try to be home around seven.” 

* * * 

“Christ, movies at home,” Brian commented, eyeing Justin’s ass. “Next thing you know, we’ll be breeding.”

Justin straightened up from inserting the DVD into the player, hit the play button on the remote, and walked back, falling into the far end of the couch. “Who’ll be breeding, Daddy?” He kicked Brian’s bare foot with his stocking one.

“Shut up and watch the show.” He tugged on Justin’s foot. “Come here,” he ordered.

“Yes, Daddy,” Justin replied, moving eagerly to the other side of the couch, his back against Brian’s chest. 

“Cut that Daddy shit, sonny boy.”

“I’ll have to be spanked.”

“Or something…” 

On screen, “Dead Alive” kicked up.

“Never heard of it,” Brian said, fitting his chin in the space between Justin’s shoulder and neck, breathing against his ear.

“The kid at the store said it was directed by Peter Jackson.” 

“The Lord of the Rings guy?”

“Yup.” 

Forty-five minutes later, they were laughing hysterically as the hero of the film beat up a zombie baby on a playground, and two horrified mothers, not knowing that the child was the undead, looked on. 

“This is by Peter Jackson?” Brian asked in disbelief, gasping for air as the baby was drop kicked across the yard. At least this scene spared them the consumption of zombie pudding pus from earlier, falling eyeballs, and copious, oozing brain matter. They should have seen it coming; in the first three minutes a man bitten by a rabid monkey had had various body parts chopped off by his machete wielding colleague after a horrified, “You’ve got… the Bite!” He had never seen so much gore in one film. And that was saying a lot. 

“Yeah, guess it’s one of his really early films. I can’t believe this, this has got to be the sickest movie I have ever seen,” Justin snickered. Yup, he’d thank the girl who gave him the recommendation. 

Just as the zombie baby was being violently stuffed into its own diaper bag, there was a pounding on the loft door. Justin lifted his head and looked back, while Brian hauled himself up and away from the other man’s body, bounding easily over the back of the couch, padding across the floor and hauling open the door. 

“Brian!” 

Justin’s brows scrunched up as a stocky man he had never seen before barreled into Brian, grabbing him around the waist and lifting him up.

“Jesus, Liam, put me the fuck down!” 

“Oh ho! Still the lightweight, are we? Sorry to hear about your mum.” He put Brian down, patting him on the shoulder. Justin saw the man was probably about Brian’s age by the way he carried himself, but he looked a lot older. Not in shape, bit of a gut, red hair thinning a bit. Still, in his face one could see the fine structure, the high cheekbones that weren’t obscured by the bit of chub, the lush lips that made clear he was related. Brian stepped back, away from Liam, and sighed. He glanced over at Justin, who had put the movie on mute and stood. 

“Oh, hey, sorry. I didn’t realize you had company,” Liam remarked as he took Justin in.

“I don’t, just you,” Brian bit back. “How you doing, Liam? You want a drink?”

“Foolish questions! I’m fine. You have whiskey?”

Brian moved into the kitchen. “Justin,” he called across the space. “This is Liam. My cousin. Liam, this is Justin. My…” He paused. Liam waited, expressionless at first. Then russet eyebrows shot upwards as Liam waited for Brian to finish. “What are we calling each other these days?” Brian asked, busying himself with pouring the whiskey. “Want some?” he asked Justin, off hand, pretending not to watch Liam’s face.

“Life partner?” Justin offered, moving across the room. “Uh… boyfriend? Lover?” Revenge for Brian’s dumping the definition of terms in his lap. “I prefer love of his life.” And that was just being perverse. “Nice to meet you, Liam,” he finished, holding out his hand for Liam to take, albeit a bit limply. Justin wondered if it was just surprise or if this was an indication of things to come. He let go of Liam’s hand as the other man stared at him. “I’ll just have a beer, Brian, thanks though,” Justin finished, moving to the refrigerator. 

“Asshole works, too,” Brian said to him, softly, as he passed, an edge in his voice.

“It certainly does,” Justin grinned, ignoring him. 

“So. You’re gay.” Liam took the shot glass, knocked back the liquor, held the glass out again. Brian poured more in. Damn, at this rate, his relatives were going to drink him out of his alcohol supply. He made a mental note to pick up a cheap bottle for these occasions. A few bottles.

“Yup,” Brian answered. 

“And Justin’s your boyfriend.”

“I prefer partner. He lives here. You shocked?”

Liam paused. “Nah. I mean, I’m surprised. Just because, you know, this is the first I’ve heard of it, and we used to hang out a lot when we were kids.”

“Liam and I used to run away and hide, immediately, whenever our families got together,” Brian explained to Justin.

“Yeah, believe me, there was plenty to run from,” Liam added. 

“Your mom was fairly sane,” Brian commented. 

“Sane enough to divorce my dad when I was fifteen. I was only sorry I didn’t get to see you so much after that. But I didn’t miss seeing my dad, or Aunt Joan. Sorry! I shouldn’t speak bad of the dead, huh? Anyway…” He knocked his glass against Brian’s. They both downed the contents. Justin watched, took a long gulp of his beer. He was not going to stay stone sober in the face of this. 

“Anyway,” Liam continued, “I’m surprised. But it makes sense. There were never any girlfriends that you talked about at all. And then that time you emailed me a couple years ago, about moving to New York…”

“Moving to New York meant Brian’s gay?” Justin didn’t get it.

“No, but writing that he heard there were, quote unquote, some fabulous clubs in Chelsea, kind of made me think, huh.” 

“Yeah, I wondered if you’d pick up on that one.” 

“Obviously I didn’t really. Probably just didn’t want to think about it. Anyway, here I am. Holy God, what are you watching?” Liam stared across the room at the t.v., where a man was running with a lawnmower extended in front of him through a crowd of people. Blood and body parts rained across the screen.

“Just a little something to forget my troubles,” Brian smirked. “Seemed appropriate way to get mentally prepared for dealing with the family.”

“I’ll go turn it off,” Justin offered, moving out of the kitchen. 

“That’s no way to get your mind off death,” Liam reprimanded, eyeing the screen before it went blank. “Only two things for that, sex and booze.” 

“Well, we were…” Brian started, but Liam coughed loudly, following that with a slight strangling noise. 

“No, no, no details, please. All American guy gagging here! Unless it’s pussy, I don’t want to know.”

“Pussy, gross,” Justin commented, seemingly to himself, but quite audibly, his voice dropping in from the background.

Liam’s eyebrows twisted at Justin’s comment, but then he thought about it, and laughed at himself. Brian joined him. Liam just might offer more amusement than that sicko movie. He always had been pretty much the one relative Brian had been able to stand. “So, why’d you drop by?”

“My dad dragged me over to Aunt Joan’s house. Apparently Claire’s moved in…”

Brian’s eyebrows shot up at that.

“Huh, didn’t know that one? I see you two are getting along same as usual.”

“Some things never change.”

“Nope, and as usual, as soon as the family gathered, I ran the hell out. Came looking for you. Claire said you couldn’t be there because you had this big business to run, but I figured that’s what you’d told her. Or she was lying to make it look like you might actually want to be there. I kinda figured it was that last one, so I just came here.”

“I’m surprised you came at all. You never got on with Joan.”

“My dad got a thing in his ass that I should come, and you know him, it’s easier just to go along and get the crap over with than the grief you earn for years by setting your head against the tide of those assholes. Besides, I wanted to see how you’re doing. Seems you’re doing well.” He looked around the loft, taking everything in. “Beautiful place, beautiful things.” He watched Justin walk back toward them. 

“So, I suppose I should get going,” Liam said after the slight pause. “Don’t want to interrupt your movie.”

“Why don’t you come out with us?” Justin asked. “We were going to meet a friend out for drinks.”

“Oh, we were?” Brian echoed. 

“Hey, I don’t want to intrude…”

“Well, Woody’s is hardly a titty strip club, but there’re drinks.”

“Hm, if you insist. Definitely, let’s go get drunk and bitch about our fucked up family. Woody’s a club? Not a gay club?”

“Nah, just a gay bar. Although we could take you to Babylon…” Brian began, his eyes sparkling as he considered the shock value.

“Brian…” Justin warned.

“…but you’d like Woody’s better. You’ll probably like my friend Michael, too. I picked up with him right after you moved with your mom to New York.”

“Uh… a gay bar?”

“You want to go out drinking, or hang out at a motel with your dad?” 

“Well, if you put it that way…”

“Trust me, Liam. Nobody’s going to pick you up.”

“Fine. And, by the way, I’m staying at a hotel. My dad’s the cheap fuck, not me.”

Brian knew there was a reason he liked his cousin. Even if he was a relative.

* * * 

Liam managed tolerably well, but mostly because he was on his way to ensuring a state of blind drunkenness, matching Brian shot for shot. He had convinced himself that he wouldn’t remember anything in the morning anyway. “So you’re married to Michael,” he said to Ben.

“And you’re straight.” 

“Yup.”

“Not many straight guys show up here.”

“Except for that Pool Boy cooler guy,” Michael laughed. “And he ran screaming. Hey, didn’t Brian bring him down here, too?”

“So, what do you think?” Ben asked Liam, nodding around the bar.

Liam looked around. It was fairly late, after midnight, and the lights had gone down. There was a couple making out in the corner, but besides that and some flamboyant outfits, not much different from the straight bars Liam hung out at in New York. He had seen plenty of guys making out there. It was Wednesday night, so the atmosphere at Woody’s was fairly tame. “Seems like every other bar out there. Only no girls.” 

“There are a few, sometimes.”

“Yeah, usually your mother,” Ben joked.

Michael scowled, and changed the subject. “You should see Babylon if you want to see a scene.” 

“Fairly carnivalesque,” Ben added.

“In the Bakhtinian manner?” Liam asked, almost knocking down his beer as he mis-estimated the distance between his hand and it. Shit. Time to start sipping, boy-o, he told himself. “Or the Rabelasian definition?” He meant to be a smartass, and was shocked when Ben replied, “Oh, I’ve always thought that Bakhtin’s ‘Rabelais and His World’ could be applied to gay culture…” 

“Oh, sweetie, don’t get him started,” Emmett sighed, reaching over and patting Liam on the knee. “He’s beauty and brains, but unfortunately you can never bullshit around him, not even in a bar.”

Ben laughed. “Sorry, I’m lecturing on Bakhtin for one of my classes. Part of the idea is that the gay club might be a current example of the carnivalesque, in its suspension of the ordinary, a tearing down of daily hierarchical distinctions in the wild indulgence of excess, sex, drugs.”

“You should talk to Brian about that,” Michael spoke up. “Bring him in for your next lecture as the perfect example of the carnivalian, same as I lectured on your gay comic heroes.”

Unfortunately for Michael, Liam did not pick up on the point in the conversation he had been hoping would rivet attention.

“Brian’s gotten around, huh?”

The three men around him roared. 

“Oh, my god,” Emmett gasped, after he stopped laughing, “Brian’s had sex with probably every fuckable guy in the city!” 

“Even the straight ones?” Liam joked, somewhat uncomfortably, but drunk enough to ask.

Emmett’s face twisted in puzzlement. “Straight guys aren’t fuckable, they don’t…” he trailed off, not wanting to insult Liam by pointing out his obvious need to hit a gym.

Liam ignored Emmett’s discomfort. “Really? Would you fuck me?” Okay. So maybe he was really drunk. 

“No, honey, I’m a bottom.”

“What?” 

“I prefer getting fucked. Well, most of the time.”

“So you’re versatile.”

Emmett grinned suddenly. “Well, you seem to be picking up on things. Maybe you aren’t so unfuckable! Yeah, I might suck you off. What size are you, exactly? I have a size requirement, you must be this big to get on the ride…” Emmett peered downward, between Liam’s legs.

“Brian!” Liam twisted around, searching for his cousin.

“He’s harmless, really,” Brian called over, having caught the last part of that conversation. “Just tell him no and swat him on the nose.” He straightened up from the pool table, where he’d just missed his shot, and wandered over to the side of the room, where everyone was sitting, leaving Justin studying the line up on the pool table. He moved to where Liam and Emmett sat. “Emmett, how many times do I have to tell you, you try to fuck the straight guys, you’re only going to get hurt. If only by me, if you don’t at least leave my poster boys alone. And now my cousin?” He reached for his beer, which seemed to be on the verge of multiplying. Shit.

“He doesn’t fuck them, Brian, he only bottoms or sucks dick, right?” Liam drained his glass, looking at Emmett for confirmation. Emmett beamed encouragingly.

Brian stared at Liam, then flicked his gaze to Emmett. “What is it with you?” he asked. 

“I have the magic,” Emmett replied, “it just sucks them in.” 

“It sucks their dicks in,” Michael snickered. 

Justin came over to join them. “I won,” he announced, leaning his stick up against the wall. 

“What? What do you mean? I left the cue ball behind my two and the shot on the eight.” 

“I banked.” 

“I didn’t see anything,” Brian griped. “Anybody see that shot?”

“Hey,” Justin replied, poking him in the ribs, “I don’t need anyone watching to prove anything. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

Liam watched as Brian paused, his eyes moving to meet Justin’s. Something passed between them. Then Brian smiled. “Fine. I believe you.” He reached out and touched his partner’s cheek. 

The moment was a bit too intimate for Liam. He could take in strangers across the room making out. Hey, he was just drunk enough that he hoped that some of those guys might go further, just so he’d see what the deal was. But this, between his cousin and the blonde kid, that was just too… intimate. It was as if everything around the pair had faded away. Him included. 

“So where’d you guys meet?” Liam asked. “Was it at that Babylon place?” 

Emmett snickered, and Ben rolled his eyes. Justin glanced at Brian, who smirked back. 

“They met on the school bus, Brian was playing monitor,” Michael replied before thinking. Ben squeezed him in a warning. “Hey, I’m kidding, it was a joke!”

“Seriously?” Liam asked.

“No,” Brian ground out, glaring at Michael. Damn it all anyway, he probably should have been prepared for questions of this nature, if he was planning to drag Justin to face his family. He reached over to the table next to Michael, and picked up the shot waiting for him. He hadn’t been planning on downing that one, but, what the hell. 

But Justin spoke up, surprising him. “Actually, I came down to Liberty Avenue for the first time a few years ago. Brian was coming out of Babylon, so you’re kind of right. He spotted me across the street, and sort of…”

“Picked him up.” Brian finished the sentence. 

“Really? So, love at first sight?”

Brian and Justin looked at each other, and then everyone was laughing. Liam looked around, confused. “What?”

“Love at first sight for me. I stalked him.” 

“The twink that wouldn’t leave,” Michael added, lifting the beer to his lips, willing himself to shut up. Too much of an edge there. And he didn’t feel the way that sounded, testy. Not anymore. But recall is a funny thing, bringing back the memory of old feelings, even if we no longer hold onto them. 

“I didn’t resist that much,” Brian added, causing Emmett and Michael to both choke on their drinks. Ben just listened; he hadn’t been around at the time, and had only heard the story through Michael’s obviously biased point of view. 

“Oh, he tried everything to get rid of me, but I just moved in. Brian was not a commitment kind of guy.”

“King of the carnival,” Ben explained, and Liam got it. No doubt, apparently Brian was to dick what he, Liam, aspired to be to pussy. Although at this point, he would settle for a girlfriend, if only for the regular sex. Watching the way Brian had been eyed all night by almost every guy walking by, somehow, Liam didn’t think that lack of opportunity was an issue for him. 

“So what happened?” Liam asked. “I mean, you’re obviously serious about each other now.”

Silence again. “Oh, fuck me, I’ve entered the shit field, haven’t I?”

“The shit field?” Ben asked. 

“Sometimes, you know, you’re just walking along, and you feel your foot slip on something. And you’ve stepped in shit, only it’s in the tall grass, hell, it’s a field of tall grass, and there’s shit all around, and you had no idea you’d wandered into it. Seems a common occurrence in our family,” Liam nodded Brian’s way.

“I call it the minefield,” Brian answered. He looked over at Justin, who shrugged. Brian moved closer, in back of him, put his arms around his shoulders, hugged him into his chest. He could use the support, feeling none too steady on his feet. And of course, all the chairs were taken. He found himself saying, “I went to Justin’s senior prom…”

Liam’s eyebrows raised slightly at that, but he said nothing, sensing he should just shut up. He got that, even through the tide of alcohol. 

“One of the kids there took serious issue to my boyfriend showing up to dance with me,” Justin finished, realizing Brian wasn’t continuing the story, just breathing heavily and leaning on him a bit too hard. “He took a bat to my head. In front of Brian. Crushed my skull, I was in a coma for a while, then rehab for a really long time.” 

“Holy shit!” Liam breathed. He glanced up at Brian, who had bent his face down into Justin’s hair. “Holy shit… holy shit.” He could think of nothing better to say. Finally, he came out with, “I guess that’s gonna turn things serious.”

Justin breathed out, relieved. He’d been worried Liam would say something stupid. That was one of the reasons he avoided talking about this. People never knew what to say, or they would say something like, “Well, at least you lived.” And he had repressed his feelings over it for a very long time. But now that he’d brought it up, the first time, in fact, since confronting Hobbes, he realized, while the subject was still upsetting, the intense, sickening rage that burned through his gut at its very mention, that was gone. 

“Yeah, it was bad.” Justin left it at that. 

Liam was nodding. “Shit, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put a downer on the evening.”

“You didn’t…” Justin assured him, but it was obvious he had. Brian was holding him far too tightly, his head not coming up, leaning too heavily against him. “You couldn’t have known, it’s a pretty depressing story.” 

“But it brought you two closer.”

“Don’t tell us we should look on the bright side of things,” Brian spoke up, his voice muffled. “That’s bullshit.”

Justin sighed, and patted Brian’s hand, where it convulsively gripped his shirt. “I’m fine. We’re fine.” He was speaking to Brian, not to Liam, but the only response was another squeeze, the arms drawing him in tighter. 

“Well, it’s getting late, we should be getting along,” Michael said, looking at Ben, who nodded back at him. “Liam, you need a ride somewhere? I’ve only had two beers since I’ve been here.” 

“I can take a cab,” Liam answered, getting up off his chair and stumbling a bit. 

“No trouble, we’re giving Emmett a ride home, he lives across town,” Ben filled in, reaching out to steady the other man. “Only, no puking in the back seat. It’s a rule.” 

“Cool, thanks. Hey, Justin, I’m sorry if I brought up bad memories,” Liam said, turning back to his cousin and his significant other. Justin just smiled slightly. 

“Hey, Brian, we’ll see you Saturday,” Michael finished, knowing he wouldn’t get an answer. He turned to leave. 

“Tell Brian I’m sorry, when he comes out of it,” Liam added. 

“I will. It’s nice to meet you,” Justin finished, and watched the group walk away. “Brian. Brian?” He heard the breathing against his ear, and how heavy Brian’s body was against his back. Mentally, he counted the shots of whiskey backward, and watched as Ben practically carried Liam through the doorway. “Brian!” 

“Hm? They go?”

Oh, just fucking great. Justin pushed backwards slightly, and Brian swayed back with the shove, enough so Justin could turn around, and catch him by the shoulders. “That sucked,” Brian commented. At least he was standing. “Like we need to think about that. Fucking family.” His words were running into each other, his eyes visibly working to focus. That last shot… damn it, he knew he shouldn’t have done it.

“You want to get a cab?” Justin asked. 

Brian peered down at him, squinting with one eye shut. “Uh huh. You should be in charge of that. Take the love of your life with you.” He enunciated those last words slowly but not so clearly, then chuckled. 

“Asshole,” Justin answered, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of Woody’s, so they could find a ride home.

* * * 

“Come here.” The whispered command belied the drunken state he knew Brian was in, coming through the darkness as Justin knelt at the foot of the bed, pulling off Brian’s socks. 

Justin finished his ministrations, then climbed upward, pulling his own shirt over his head, dragging off his pants, throwing them aside. He lay next to Brian in nothing but underwear, and began unbuttoning Brian’s shirt. 

“He’s right, you know.” 

Justin pressed his hand against Brian’s shoulder, swept the shirt off his arm. “Here, lift up, let me get this…” Brian struggled up, and Justin peeled off his shirt, then ran his hand over the warm skin thus exposed. “Who’s right?” He reached for Brian’s belt buckle. 

“Liam,” Brian said, pressing his hardening dick against Justin’s fingers as his zipper came sliding down. “That was going to get things serious. Why did it take a fucking bat to your head to make me get it?” 

“Brian…” Justin began, his tone a clear warning. In it lay the whole mantra, it’s not your fault, don’t blame yourself, you probably saved my life by being there. He didn’t need to actually say the words.

Brian kicked off his pants, and slid his hands down the back of Justin’s underwear, sliding them down around his thighs, clearing the way for his hands over his rear cheeks. “Sometimes I wonder if I would have just kept being an asshole to you, if that hadn’t happened. That’s shit, that I’d be grateful to something that almost killed you. That’s sick.” 

“No, it isn’t, it’s human. And I don’t think that’s true at all.”

“Whadjya mean?”

“I mean,” Justin answered, trying hard to form the words into coherency even as Brian’s lips nuzzled at that sensitive spot just above his collar bone. “You yourself said that night was ridiculously romantic. Did you mean it, not ironically? It was romantic, wasn’t it?”

Silence. Lips moving up, against soft skin at the neck, jawline, tip of tongue moving into play, tracing a warm, wet path across the skin. “Yes.” 

“I think we were moving into something more serious anyway. I think *you* were moving into something more serious. I was already there.”

“I can’t lose you,” Brian said, his hands moving down the back of Justin’s thighs, grabbing his hamstrings and pulling him in, closer. His words were thick with alcohol, and there was something else in his voice, a kind of tension, something that Justin could not identify. “Take these fucking things off.” His knee hooked the underwear, drawing it down Justin’s legs to where his foot could pull them all the way off. His knees nudged apart Justin’s legs so he could tangle his own in them, entwining their bodies ever closer

“I’m not going anywhere,” Justin answered Brian’s former statement softly. He wasn’t sure what this was, and didn’t want to say anything to break the strange but oddly comforting mood. Not that that seemed likely, now that they were both fully naked, and Brian’s lips were moving over his cheek, grazing his mouth, Brian’s tongue coming out to trace a slow, excruciatingly slow pattern across his lips, then leaning in, mouth possessing Justin’s, invading tongue sliding over teeth, into the deep recesses. Then Brian pulled back, shifted them both onto their sides, their bodies lined up, Brian’s chest at Justin’s back. He pressed his erection against the space between Justin’s upper thighs, and placed his hand on Justin’s hip, kissed his shoulder blade, rested his forehead on Justin’s upper back. “If I loved you…” 

Justin held his breath, afraid to move. He took in the sensation of Brian’s hand as it opened up on his hip, slid down, grasping Justin’s shaft as it jutted up against his stomach, moved his thumb onto the sensitive tip, letting it rest there. “Just, let me love you, just shut up, let me…” Brian trailed off, his hand moving to create the friction, glorious sensation, and before long, the satisfying burn of Brian pressing into him, slowly filling him, his movements careful, and easy, and Justin realized he was recreating the time they had first made love after he had been injured. He arched his back to take Brian in more fully, and turned his head back to the lips that waited for him. 

* * * 

Daylight poured into the loft when Brian awoke to find Justin propped up on one elbow, watching him. Oh, shit. That look, what the fuck? What was that look about? “What?” he barked out, and winced. His head throbbed as answer to his vocalization. 

Justin grinned. “So you were fairly drunk last night.”

Right. Liam. And Justin with that look on his face. Like the Cheshire cat. “Oh, fuck, what did I do?” He flashed through the evening, it was spotty, but there they were, oh, yeah, Liam and his stupid questions...

Oh, well, hell. He sat up, gasped in regret at the piercing pain that flooded him at his sudden action, and dropped back down into the pillows.

“Don’t worry, Brian. I know what it was all about.”

Great. He couldn’t wait to hear this. Justin had been thinking. Worse, analyzing. That never boded well. He closed his eyes. He did not have long to wait.

“Really, it’s okay, Brian. I know all that shmoopy stuff really wasn’t about me, well, not completely. Although I did appreciate hearing how you feel. I know you really are upset over everything that’s happening with your family and, even if you don’t admit it, Joan’s death. You’re somewhat in denial about how upsetting this is, even if,” Justin held up a hand to forestall the words that would surely follow Brian’s drawn-in breath, “…even if you aren’t sorry Joan’s dead, this whole situation brings back feelings you don’t really want to think about because they’re painful. So you transferred the pain you buried, that’s been triggered by the death of your mother onto the memory of my attack, because it’s safer for you to process. In psychoanalytic terms, you performed an act of transference away from the uncontrollable object and onto the safe one. That would be me. Which is actually kinda cool, besides being kind of fucked up.”

Brian snorted. “Thank you, Dr. Freud. Are you going to shut up and let me suffer in peace now?” 

“It’s perfectly normal to feel upset about the death of your mother, and to be unable to acknowledge the level of anger you have for not being allowed to love her. So instead, you asked me if you would, quote, let me love you. Unquote. I think that was about a lot more than me, if it was about me at all. So don’t worry, I’m not going to get all weird about what you said.”

“That’s just great.” Brian tried sitting up again, winced. “Either I’m all drunken sappiness over you, or I’m having latent and unwanted sorrow about my bitch of a mother.”

“It’s okay, Brian, it’s okay to feel upset under the circumstances…”

“Can you please shut up? Seriously. You can shut the fuck up now. My head is killing me, and you’re going to finish me off.” He covered his face with his hands, dropped back down to the mattress, and curled up into a ball.

“Told you I’d kill you with kindness.”

“I was hoping you’d fuck me to death instead.”

Justin laughed, and bounced out of bed. Brian seemed back to normal. Whatever that was.


	5. Chapter V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire seeks out Justin, and Brian works up an obituary.

Knocking, again. Justin opened his eyes slowly, coming out of the warm cocoon of half-sleep he’d been floating in, sprawled out on the bed. The slant of the sun told him it was late afternoon, so he’d been asleep for longer than he expected. Well, it was to be expected. He’d had an early class, getting up so Brian could drive him in, hung over after their late night. 

Knocking. 

He’d kind of hoped it was Brian who would wake him from his nap, those wonderful hands and lips slowly drawing him out of his state of sleep, dragging Justin up for the kind of comfort Brian seemed to need a lot of in the last few days. Not that he would ever admit it. But Justin knew, despite Brian’s words, he was instinctively seeking warmth to counter the cold shock of his mother’s death, the sudden change in his world. For whatever reason. Brian’s resistance to admitting any emotion at all, his fierce rejection of any feeling whatsoever as far as this latest turn of events, was just… wrong. Justin felt some weird lack of balance whenever Brian touched him, as if he were slightly off-center. Or maybe he was merely projecting his own feelings onto Brian, the desire to not believe that Brian could be so hard-hearted. He had to feel something.

Knocking.

“Yeah, yeah,” Justin called as he dragged himself out of bed, and walked barefoot, clad only in the sweat pants that hung around his hips, “I’m coming.” Didn’t know why, the only knocking lately had been for Brian. “I just live here,” Justin muttered, as he pulled the door open.

And came face to face with Claire. Oh. Just great.

“Uh… hi. Claire. He’s not here. I can tell him you stopped by.” He was not going to babysit his lover’s sister as she got slowly drunk. Not again.

“Actually,” Claire replied, moving into the doorway. “I figured Brian would be at work. I’m here to see you.” 

“Me?” Justin turned and walked to the bedroom and picked up the t-shirt he’d thrown aside earlier. Then he returned to the kitchen, where Claire had seated herself on one of the seats at the bar counter. “You want some coffee, or tea?” he asked. Not something to drink. Just like approaching Gus, he reasoned, offer only those choices you want accepted. 

“Coffee would be great.” Claire studied him as he turned to get the coffee out of the refrigerator. “I always wondered what you were like,” she continued, watching him pour the beans into the grinder. Justin pressed his palm down on the lid, and the whine of the machine filled the space, giving him a second to consider that.

“You knew about me?” he asked, pouring the grounds into a filter, and placing the filter into the machine. He took the pot to the sink.

“Not exactly. There was that prom thing that was in the papers. Then, when Brian opened Kinnetik, there was a picture with his arm around you in the social section. Mom almost had a heart attack. Her successful son, outed to all her friends, the city.” Claire’s smile was sour. Justin turned on the water to fill the pot. Huh. He vaguely remembered Ted mentioning that picture, but he had only glanced at it over Emmett’s shoulder, mostly noting that he looked okay, but Brian looked awesome. Brian hadn’t said anything about it at all. “Mom called you ‘that boy,’ as in, if Brian doesn’t care for his own immortal soul, he should at least worry that he’s dragging ‘that boy’ into a sea of iniquity. I’d tell her, he’s been with you this long, maybe he actually loves someone for once. She never listened to me, that bitch. She never listened to anyone, but the voice of God in her head. Personally, I don’t think that was God…” 

Justin returned to the coffee machine and poured the water in, carefully putting the pot into place. He didn’t quite know how to respond to any of this. 

“I’m sorry I insulted you in your own home the other day,” Claire continued, meeting Justin’s eyes with her own. “I get pretty bitchy when I’m upset.” She smiled, her lips a tight line. “Inherited trait.” 

“Yeah, well…” The coffee pot gurgled. Else, nothing but quiet. Finally, Justin asked, “Are you here just to apologize?”

She looked uncomfortable for a moment, then shook her head, the stringy hair swaying in front of her face. She brushed it impatiently aside. “I don’t know how to reach him, Justin. I was hoping you could help me.”

“Reach him…” Justin repeated. He held himself absolutely still, much as he would if he were to come across a rattler, curled up, head back, tail shaking. 

“I can’t do this alone,” Claire continued. “I’ve got relatives descending, to say nothing of Mom’s church biddies. You’d think the Church would be helpful at times like this. I’ve got Father Steven saying stuff like, it’s all for the best, and I know if I ask him what the heck he means, he’s only going to say, you must have faith… Faith in what? No one’s helping me. I’ve got to get that house together, do you know my mom didn’t leave a will? You know how much the state takes when you don’t make provisions? The whole thing’s gonna go, and I don’t know who to call. I can’t afford an attorney to sort this out. You’ll laugh, but I need to write an obituary and I just keep writing ‘Joan Kinney, selfish drunken icicle, beloved by no one except for a supernatural being who may or may not exist.’ You know, the only thing I’ve been able to do is pick out the dress to put her in, and that’s only because Brian actually stopped by one of the twenty times I asked him, and...” She started laughing, almost hysterically. Justin became worried when she didn’t stop. The coffee stopped perking. He took a mug out of the cabinet, poured coffee into it, and slid it in front of Brian’s sister. She slowly stopped laughing. 

“Want to share what’s so funny?” Justin asked, getting himself a mug. 

“Um, not sure.” She peered at him over the rim of the cup, took a sip, and put it back down on the counter. She smirked. “We’re dressing Mom in red for the funeral, forever in red.” 

Justin stared, not sure he heard her correctly. “Red?” 

“Yup,” Claire practically crowed. “I had two other dresses lined up, but then there was the red one. Oh, I really wanted to just send it over myself, but… and I couldn’t send over the other ones. And one had to go, or she’d go into the ground naked. It was like I was paralyzed, just like writing that obituary.” That red dress. Now Brian could be blamed for it, and Claire got what she wanted. She smirked, considering the horror her mother would feel if she could see her own corpse. “I mean, I loved my mother, but I hated her too. You know how much I hated her, Justin?”

“I'm starting to have an idea,” he replied, extremely uncomfortable. He did not really know Claire. He felt he was invading some territory he should stay out of. Through no fault of his own, but still. 

“Brian took a look at those dresses, and said, ‘the red one,’ he made the decision, got another dig in I would never be able to. He’s hard like that. I wanted to kiss him, but… we just don’t touch relatives affectionately.” She looked up, a hard stare as she gazed intently at the man across from her. “You love him, don’t you?”

Justin wondered if she’d had anything to drink before getting here. “Yes. Very much.”

“Why?”

“Do you? Love him?”

She seemed taken aback for a moment, then a sly smile returned. “Sorry. I’m getting too personal, aren’t I?”

Justin nodded shortly, and sipped his coffee to hide his perplexity. Damn, these situations really made him feel his age; he hated being made to feel so inexperienced. He wasn’t, either. It just struck him that Claire had an agenda, and he had no idea what it was. 

“Claire, why don’t you tell everyone to fuck off, and do what you want? Write a bitchy obit, say that she never did anything for anyone who fell out of her step, and you’re not grateful.”

“I can’t.”

Justin sighed.

“It’s my community,” Claire explained, “the church. Those people. My sons are altar boys. It’s all I have. I clean offices at night. My colleagues don’t speak English. I have no friends, no skills, no experience. I have a GED. There are no other jobs. The only people who talk to me are people I see on Sundays at church. If I show how I really feel… I’ll have nothing, and nowhere to go. Especially after the state takes Mom’s house.”

Man, what kind of job did their parents do on these kids, Justin wondered, eyeing Claire. “More coffee?” he asked. 

Claire shook her head. “She loved him, you know. Both my parents did. He disappointed them about as much as they loved him, so the fall from grace was big. Yeah, it’s screwed up, but at least they loved him. I didn’t even exist as far as they were concerned. He was it, bet you didn’t know that.” 

Justin shook his head. What the hell was she talking about?

“From the time he was born, he was the golden child. He was good at everything, sports, school, you name it. Me, I was awkward. Gawky. The second he popped out and started talking at 18 months in whole sentences, teaching himself to read at age three because my mom wouldn’t read as much as he wanted her to… they might not even have had another kid. There are boxes of stuff that my Mom kept of his, packed away in the attic. You know he was on a soccer team that went to nationals? He headlined the Pittsburgh sports section one Sunday. My dad cut it out, and carried it around in his wallet, showing it to everybody. But he had nothing on Mom. Until about two years ago, when she came home, and told me I had betrayed her by not telling me about my brother’s sinful lifestyle… was that you she walked in on? She only said, ‘my son, corrupting that angelic boy…” 

Justin almost spit out his coffee when he started laughing, but he managed to keep his lips closed, and so instead only choked a bit. Angelic. Him.

“You okay? You fit the description,” Claire commented. “You’re gorgeous. But then, Brian would settle for nothing less than the best. Mom used to say that, ‘my son has my refined taste. He certainly didn’t get that from his father.’ My father was pretty crude. Had a way of bullying everyone in his way. Everyone who disappointed him. The only one more disappointed than him was Joan.” 

“Uh…” Justin could think of nothing better. Then he shook himself mentally. He shouldn’t be listening to this. “Claire, I can’t help you. You know how he is. I don’t influence him.”

“I don’t believe that. And do you think this is good for him, just shutting out his whole history, as if it doesn’t exist? If nothing else, Mom’s death is closing a huge chapter in his life, in our life. Doesn’t that deserve some kind of acknowledgement?” 

Justin considered this, and remembered his own feelings earlier, that Brian’s urgent need to take comfort in Justin’s body was as much of a release from the tension of the situation, and probably not the best way of handling his emotions. But since when did Brian ever handle his emotions? He channeled them through his dick, letting out his anger at the vulnerability he could not control through aggressive, physical means. 

“I told you, she deserves nothing from me. What didn’t you hear?” 

Both Claire and Justin jumped at the sound of Brian’s voice. He was leaning in the doorway to the hall. Claire had failed to shut the door on her way in; Justin had been too distracted to double check. 

Brian stalked into the loft, and walked into the kitchen, foregoing the coffee and grabbing the whiskey bottle under the sink. Shit, Justin thought. This is not good. “Brian…”

“What, honey?” Brian returned, in a tone that could freeze the fresh-perked coffee in Justin’s mug. Justin pursed his lips, deciding silence was best. For now. 

“Brian…” Claire tried. 

“What? Isn’t it enough that I don’t return your calls? Or emails? Can’t you take a hint, Claire? You want this done right, whatever the fuck that means, you do it the way you want. I really don’t give a shit.” 

“I can’t believe that,” his sister returned, pushing back the chair and standing up. “Not because she was our mother, you think you’re the only one who suffered in that house, but I hated the old witch, probably more than you did. At least you escaped. And you got this great place, your own business, a gorgeous boyfriend who loves you… and all you can do is bitch about how much your parents sucked? What do I got? I got nothing, all the crap, and now the state’s gonna take the house since mom didn’t leave a will, I’ve got relatives milling around the place, Father Steven wants to know about the service, and I can’t even write… I can’t even write…” She started sobbing, laying her head down on the counter. “And worst of all, I have to pretend, all the time, that I actually loved the woman, I have to go around with this oh, poor momma dying… like that crap at the funeral home, pretending…”

"At my expense. Thanks, beloved family member. You really make me want to help you, Claire."

She looked up, her expression woebegone. "I don't know what else to do. If I come out with how I really feel, they'll all abandon me. Then what will I have? Huh? I sure don't have you."

Brian stared at his sister, realizing she was possibly more fucked than he was. Not that that excused her. He looked over at Justin, his expression completely neutral. “She get to you?” he asked. “Don’t bullshit me, Sunshine. What’s going on in my gorgeous boyfriend’s head?” 

Again, Justin heard the metaphoric rattle of the snake’s tail, but he was backed into a corner, and this was no time to freeze. Fine, fuck it. “I think she’s right,” he said. The look of surprise on Brian’s face at his response quickly dissolved into one of disgust. Claire sobbed on, as the two men faced off. “For yourself, not for Joan. This closes a chapter in your life, one you yourself say you’re glad is ending. Isn’t the point of its ending the fact that the irritant is gone? So do the work, put the period on it, and when it’s over, it’s over. Don’t look back. What do you have to be so pissed off about anymore?” 

Claire sobbed. Brian stared down at her. Then he looked back up at Justin. “That?” Justin spat out. “You’re kidding, right?” 

Brian’s arm snaked out, and wrapped around Justin’s waist. He drew him in, and kissed him, fiercely. When Justin swam out of the heady sensation, he realized Claire had stopped sobbing, and was staring at them. “Claire,” Brian said, not looking away from Justin’s face. 

“Yeah?” 

“Justin has a notebook and a pen over by his easel, across the room. Would you go get them?”

“Uh, sure…” 

***

KINNEY, JOAN (nee McAfee), of Pittsburgh, on September 23, 2005. Wife of the late Jack. Bore children Claire and Brian. Grandmother of three. Viewing Friday, 3-5 and 7-9 PM, at the Leslie Funeral Home, 220 Glen Street, Pittsburgh. Funeral Mass at the Church of St. Patrick, Saturday, 10 AM. 

***

“Can’t we say, celebration of death instead of viewing?” Claire asked wistfully. 

Brian shook his head. “Can’t offend your community, Claire,” Brian mocked her. “Unless you're willing to say you, not I wrote it?" Claire was shaking her head, as he knew she would, so Brian only continued, "Besides, a lot of time it’s what you don’t say. Trust me. The message is clear to anyone who knows the usual format of these things. A lot of the usual crap is missing, ‘beloved,’ etc.” 

“I only have two children, Brian,” Claire reminded him, pointing at the “three grandchildren.” 

“Yeah, I have one,” Brian returned, studying the copy for any last changes. Looked fine.

Justin glanced up, saw Claire staring at her brother. “What?” she whispered. 

Brian looked up, calmly. “My friend Lindsay has a son. I’m the father.” 

“I have a nephew?” Brian almost groaned, damn it, not the waterworks again. “Everyone’s going to ask about that, everyone knows Joan only had two… well, they thought they knew… You have to bring him.”

“No.” That was definite. 

“Brian…”

“No, Claire, he’s not to be exposed to that. I’m not going to bring him there as some sort of last ‘fuck you’ to my mother. He doesn’t deserve to be used like that.”

“Besides,” Justin added, half-joking, “That’s my job.” 

Brian’s eyes turned to him, and he sucked in his lower lip. “You don’t deserve that either. I shouldn’t do that to you.” 

“Oh, you have to,” Claire said before thinking. Damn it, not only a last slap to her mother, but the erasure of all those old biddies’ ideas that Brian was the perfect child, Claire the loser. Easy for them to believe that. They never saw Brian.

“I don’t have to do anything,” Brian returned.

“You’re bringing me,” Justin declared. “You’re not doing that *to* me, we’re doing that together. And do you really want me there only because it’ll shock people?”

Brian wrestled with his answer; he really did. But Justin knew him, and that psychoanalysis he’d gotten in bed that morning, well. It had made him think, despite his desire to avoid all of the ideas Justin had suggested. His well-established guilt over Justin, he could handle that. The idea that he was using that guilt to mask other, less desired emotions, that he had not been prepared to consider. 

Truthfully, he felt stripped. His drunken breakdown last night in front of a cousin he actually liked had been unexpected, and embarrassing. Justin had been there to chill him out when, swear to god, he had really been about to lose it; Justin’s “I’m fine, we’re fine,” echoing in his head as the one sane thing to hold onto. That’s right, we’re fine. Last night had reminded him of a bad trip he’d had once in college; he had almost seriously lost his shit, convinced under a dose of really bad LSD that his parents had discovered everything about his drug and sex life in college, and had sent the police out to drag him off to prison forever. Kids he’d known for years suddenly turned into undercover agents in his drug-addled mind, planted as students all along to haul him off to jail. And then his friend Bobby, who died the next year in a motorcycle accident, Bobby had seen something like terror in his eyes, and had told him, “It’s just the drugs, Brian. Go home. Put on Pink Floyd. It’s just the drugs, everything is fine.” So he had. And everything had been fine. 

Last night had echoed that bad trip. He wished he’d stayed home, watched the rest of that fucked-up movie with Justin. He’d felt spacey all day, and then Liam, a blast from the past, all that whiskey, but what other way to distance himself from the strange tension, his nerves on edge, a feeling like biting on tinfoil thrumming through him, and the tension of concealing it, the need to escape the tension from without, from within? The only problem was, he’d felt not only the tension, but that distance too, all day, all week. Like if he came in too close to any sort of reality, allowed himself to feel anything at all, he’d lose it, as he had last night. Justin had it, spot on, he’d been practicing emotional transference, turning his fucked up condition onto the safe object, the safe *subject,* the only one he wanted to lean on. And the Great Kinney did not lean. But Brian ached to just relax from this tension, into the one place he knew could hold him, nonetheless.

So did he want Justin at this funeral only for shock value? Honestly? No. Could he admit that? With Claire watching? No. Even without her? He hoped he might… he didn’t know.

Justin watched him, and waited, but the only response from Brian was a stony stare. Justin sighed, and looked away, over to where Claire was picking up the piece of paper on which the obituary was written out. “Thanks for this,” she said, getting up to leave. “I’ll send it into the paper when I get home. Could you…” she hesitated. “Could you come to the house tomorrow at noon? Father Tom’ll be there to talk about the service.”

“Claire, how did she die?” Brian asked. “Okay, she hit her head. But what happened?” 

Claire just shrugged. “Not sure, but it was in the church. Father Steven found her. Ask Father Tom, he probably talked to Father Steven about it.” She turned to Justin. “Thanks, Justin.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

Claire smirked. “Uh huh. Brian? Could you come?”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll be there,” came the grudging return.

After she’d walked out, Brian wandered over to the couch, his glass of whiskey in hand, as Justin closed the door. “Lock it,” Brian said. “Turn off the intercom, I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

“I was gonna order Thai,” Justin answered.

“Okay, fine. Only open for the delivery.” He picked up the remote and switched the tv on. Gotta see the end of that movie…

But Justin came over, and sat across from him, staring. Brian tried to pay attention to the action on the screen, but… He sighed, and looked over at the piercing blue gaze. “What?”

“I know you hate this question, but really. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. What else would I be?” Eyes back on the tv. 

“No, you’re not.”

“Why do you ask if you already know the answer?”

“Because I don’t know what to do for you.”

“You can suck my dick.”

“Brian.” 

“I’m not kidding.”

“I know. Why were you ready to kill Claire, and then totally switched gears?”

Brian shifted his eyes back. He was very aware of the fact that Justin’s gaze was held steadily on him, as Brian’s own darted all around, seeking, avoiding, away, returning. Stop doing that, he commanded himself. He shrugged. 

“I just worry, Brian. This funeral’s gonna be hard for you. But I’m not sure how, exactly.”

“Well, if that’s true, then you better be with me so I don’t hurt myself, little caregiver, light o’ my life.” 

“Fuck you, Brian.” 

“Uh uh, you said you’d suck my dick, now come here.”

Justin grinned, knowing that Brian’s command that he “be with me so I don’t hurt myself” was the admission he wouldn’t give earlier when directly confronted with his reasons for wanting Justin to go. He wanted Justin there, not just for shock value. Justin was happy; he’d gotten the reply in Kinney-speak. He got up from his position, and moved toward an infinitely preferable one.


	6. Chapter VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gus has learned to swear, to Brian's delight and Lindsay's dismay. Brian, Justin, and Claire talk to the priests about the funeral; Justin is creeped out by a creepy clergy. Brian shares his feelings about the Church with Justin, and an altar is desecrated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two notes from the original 2007 posting: 
> 
> 1) It’s about time I started thanking Carlyn, a truly awesome beta, not just for fixing up the glitches in my writing, and her ability to remind me of details I’ve missed or mistaken from past episodes (to say nothing of my own earlier chapters!), but also for her wondrous contribution in brainstorming sessions. I’m lucky to have the bootiest beta willing to work with my stuff.
> 
> 2) Warning: There is a scene in the following chapter which may be considered “sacrilegious” or even may be thought of by some as “desecration.” If you have a strong belief that the places and stuff of religious institutions should be held sacrosanct, I strongly encourage you to not upset yourself, and just skip this one.

“Hey, Brian,” Melanie greeted, holding the door open with one hand while the other clasped the baby against her shoulder. “Come on in. Is Lindsey expecting you?”

Brian shook his head, noting Melanie’s subdued look. “Is she here?”

“She’s getting out of the shower. Gus is having breakfast. I’d offer you a bagel…”

“No, thanks,” Brian returned, heading into the kitchen.

“How ‘bout coffee, then?” Melanie asked, following him in. 

“Daddy!” Gus yelled, pounding his spoon against the table, sending oatmeal flying.

“Gus…” Melanie started, but Brian had already crossed the room and plucked the boy out of his seat, holding him up against his chest. 

“Not a fan of oatmeal, sonny boy?” He smiled at his son as Melanie watched. She thought the smile was a bit sad. Or maybe she was just projecting her own feelings. She had felt pretty down lately. The doctor had told her it was perfectly natural, post-partum. Lord knows she’d been all over the place with the hormones during the pregnancy. Her original instinct resisting the idea of getting pregnant had been spot on; it had really done a number on her. She glanced down at the baby in her arms. All worth it, she thought. Now, just getting through these damn blues… 

“I think he takes after his father,” Melanie observed, dryly, in an effort to distract herself, and a half-hearted attempt at being her old self. Not that she was sure of who, exactly, she wanted to return to being. “Finicky eater. He’ll only eat the apples and cinnamon oatmeal, not the plain, not the brown sugar and maple. Guess he’s got the same highly developed taste.”

Brian glanced over. “You okay, Mel?”

She twisted her lips. “Yeah, I know, I’m not coming out swinging with the obvious gut shots. Quite a change, huh? Just, not enough energy.”

“Don’t worry, slugger,” Brian returned, “give yourself a year or two, and you’ll be ripping me a new one all over again.”

“Ripping new one!” Gus echoed.

Brian raised his eyebrows, looked down at his son. “Do you repeat everything?”

“Everything!” Gus agreed.

Melanie laughed. “Yeah, seriously, no swearing around the kid anymore!”

“Shit!” Gus yelled. 

Brian sucked his lips between his teeth, bit down on them to stop himself from laughing. “Oh? We learn this the hard way?”

“Yes, indeed,” Lindsey answered, coming into the kitchen, raking her fingers through her still-damp hair. “Mommy messed up.” She took Gus from Brian, kissing the latter on the cheek before putting Gus back into his seat and handing him the spoon. “Finish your oatmeal, Gus,” she ordered. “How you doing, Brian? What brings you by? Is Justin okay?”

Why did everyone always assume it was about Justin? Brian wondered, considering how to tell Lindsey about his mother. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to take Gus tomorrow …” he started, hedging over the real issue.

“Damn it, Brian, you promised!” Lindsey said, raising her voice. 

“Damn it!” Gus echoed, beating his spoon. Melanie moved to the chair next to Gus, and picked the spoon out of his fist, surreptitiously eyeing the two across the table, squaring off. She was staying out of that. Hadn’t she learned the hard way? When Lindsey told her that Brian had encouraged her to leave right after Jennie was born, Mel had at first been furious; a whole new (or old, depending on how one looked at it) reason to fight had been spawned. 

But then, somewhere in the middle of one of her and Lindsey’s blow outs, she realized she was too tired to fight. Who had the energy for it? It was a huge waste of time. Literally in mid-shout, she’d stopped, and unconsciously echoed Lindsey’s own statement from a few months before. “I can’t do this anymore, Linds. Fuck Brian. He’s got his own problems. You’re the one listening to him. That’s the problem. You always listen to him. You never listen to me.”

“That’s because you always just criticize me,” Lindsey had returned, suddenly put off the fight herself by the unexpectedly level tone of her wife. “You always want everything your way, you’re never willing to accommodate what I need too. It’s always all about you… you’re just like him.” 

“What?” Mel had not been expecting that.

“You have your ideas about how you want to live, and no one gets in the way of that. You’re just like Brian. Look at what happened when his life got disrupted by Justin’s needs. Look how he solved that.” 

“They seem to be getting along just fine.”

“Sure, now. But you blame Justin for running off on him over and over? And look what he had to do when he came back, he practically rolled over for him.”

“He wasn’t running off this last time, he was fulfilling his career goals.”

“Oh, sure,” Lindsey scoffed. “But Brian pulled that door wide open by never trying to compromise, by never trying to talk to Justin about his needs, where he was coming from.”

Mel did not want to talk about Justin and Brian. She wanted to discuss Lindsey. “You ever consider that Brian has his own agenda when he told you to leave me?”

“What?”

“He had a hellish childhood. First sign of trouble, he checks out, and pulls the door wide open for an exit out. Lindsey, come on, consider the source. And I may make all this about me, but baby, I was fighting you for us, all the way. I wasn’t fighting you to keep my own private sense of self intact, with you on the outside. I was fighting you to try to keep intact my sense of us. Maybe I need to revise that, but I’m trying, I’m begging you to tell me what the hell is going on with you so I can at least see where we might be able to go from here.” 

Lindsey had stopped then, and frowned. Then she started to smile. “We’re really nothing like them, are we? I mean, are we really comparing ourselves to two emotionally fucked gay men?”

“I think we may be too close to being able to,” Melanie conceded, twisting her lips in reply. 

“Let’s not then. Maybe what you just said is the problem.”

“What’d I just say?”

“You were fighting for your sense of us. Do we really know who ‘we’ are anymore?”

Melanie sighed. “I thought I did… but that whole Sam thing changed my vision of you, which changes my vision of us. I just don’t know anymore…”

“So how about we skip the drama, and try therapy?”

That simple. Well, not that simple, there had been a hell of a lot of work since. Long, painful work, with two demanding children. But it was in therapy that it had first been suggested that Melanie may be suffering from post-partum depression. 

Was that fight the moment they had started to work together, begin to get back together? 

They still had a ways to go. Now, Melanie kept her mouth shut when she watched these two. Her fight wasn’t with Brian, she knew that now. Her fight was with Lindsey, and the fact that her wife had a thing for guys, a thing Melanie had been forced to acknowledge since the Sam debacle. She had been unwilling to acknowledge that before, and had instead cast her hostility onto Brian, so she could allow herself the luxury of believing there was no real trouble with the way she saw Lindsey. It was better that she admit it, though, if only to herself. She hated this part of Lindsey. It threatened everything she believed in. Who was it who said, familiarity breeds contempt? She sure as hell didn’t want that to be their fate. They had a lot still to work on. 

But she had stopped brow-beating Brian. He had chalked it up to her baby blues. Whatever, she thought. She sure as hell didn’t want him to know the real reason. Although Lindsey would probably spill her guts to him about it at some point. Mel hoped Lindsey would be too embarrassed to admit her thing for guys was really a thing for Brian, at least too embarrassed to admit it to the guy at the heart of the whole issue. But Mel just didn’t know anymore. 

“My mother died, the funeral’s this Saturday. Claire’s insisting on a wake, so Friday’s out too.”

Silence. “Oh, Brian, I’m so sorry,” Melanie murmured, secretly glad at the look of shame that spread over Lindsey’s face at her asshole response before she had even given him a chance to explain. There was a lot of resentment in Lindsey, bottled up under that cool, perfect exterior. Melanie had only begun to see it, and had screamed, as was her way, from the moment she had caught a glimpse, from the moment she had learned about Auerbach. Lindsey kept it all in, hidden away, even from herself. It was that last bit that scared Melanie the most. 

“Yeah, thanks,” he replied, offhand, not sounding upset at all. 

“Are you okay?” Lindsey asked, carefully, watching him.

“You know I’d much rather hang out with Gus,” Brian said, placing his hand on his son’s head. Gus grinned up at him. 

“When’s the funeral?” Lindsey asked. 

“Saturday. You don’t have to come.”

“Don’t be silly,” Melanie replied. “Of course Lindsey should go.”

Lindsey looked over at her, her eyes softening, and mouthed silently, “Thank you.”

Mel nodded back. “Do you want Gus there, Brian?”

That startled Lindsey. Gus hadn’t been at Jack’s funeral; Brian hadn’t wanted him there, too many questions from family, and she just assumed he wouldn’t want Gus there now, either. 

“Claire knows about him,” Brian said, almost off-hand. “I wrote up the obit with the correct number of Joan’s grandchildren. It’s bound to raise questions.”

Lindsey blinked. More surprises. It was almost as if… almost as if she didn’t know him anymore, but no, that was ridiculous. She shook her head, and Brian took note. “If you don’t think he should be there, then he shouldn’t.” 

Lindsey gazed levelly at him. “What do you think would be best?”

That took him by surprise. Where Gus was concerned, he had not had much input. But since he had started taking care of the child, especially during the more turbulent moments, days, of Lindsey and Mel’s breakup, reunion, whatever it was, he had been deferred to on a regular basis. “I think it might be best if I field questions about Gus before he’s presented. Suddenly having him at the center of attention… it might be overwhelming for him. Not an appropriate forum for introduction.” He reached out, took Gus’s little hand. “How you doing, little man?”

“Up Daddy!” Gus held his arms up, and Brian picked him up easily. 

Lindsey looked over at Melanie, who smiled back. Wow, Brian thinking outside the rarified atmosphere in the two feet around himself. Melanie was impressed. “I’ll watch him and Jennie on Saturday. You won’t mind if I don’t go,” she said. The last was not a question. 

“I wish I didn’t have to go, I wouldn’t curse anyone with this, not even you, Mel.” He looked over, around the little hand that was attached to his nose, and Melanie couldn’t help but laugh. Thank god, a dig, a small one, but the familiar tone was a welcome relief. 

***

Justin got into the Corvette and buckled himself in, as Brian tore away from the curb, spinning the wheel at the same time so that the back of the car spun out, turning them completely around, before Brian’s foot hit the gas and they accelerated up to 50 in seconds.

“Jesus, slow down!” Justin gasped. “The city speed limit’s 30!”

And there it was - his own little public service announcement with him at all times. He was wondering when one would pop up – it had been while. He glanced over to the pasty cast of Justin’s cheek, and smiled. “I just adore the look on your face when I do that,” he teased. “You know I’m in complete control…”

“Hmph,” Justin grunted, glaring at him. “Yeah, I remind myself of that every time you freak me out.”

“So what, reminders daily?”

“At least,” Justin conceded. He stared at Brian’s profile. “But it isn’t just me that prompted that little display of power, as much as I love your flattery.”

“What flattery?”

“That it’s all about me.”

“Do I have to keep reminding you? it’s all about *me.*” 

“You’re nervous, aren’t you? You always get aggressive when you’re nervous.” Justin continued, ignoring that last bit. “Well, more aggressive than usual.”

Brian’s turn to glare. “Nervous. About this? Claire and a couple of priests? If those guys give you the shakes, just remember Father Tom on all fours. You know, I bet you could have him this afternoon, if you wanted…”

“Yeah. I doubt that. Father Tom’s not the problem, it’s Claire. Your sister makes me really nervous, even if you got her locked away in the cooler that is your brain,” Justin continued. He knew better than to ask Brian directly if he was angry at him for Claire’s little visit the day before. He still could not figure out why Brian had given in; he knew it wasn’t just because of what he, Justin, had said. 

Brian looked over, really looked at him, assessing. “Do you not want to do this with me?” he asked. 

“No! I do! It’s just… I don’t get her. She freaks me out.”

Brian laughed at that, and looked back at the road. 

“I’m not kidding! First she tells you she loves your mother and out of respect, you’re not to bring me to this thing. Then she comes to see me herself, and tells me she hated her mother, and that she’s wondered about me, and actually gives me enough credit to be able to get through to you, after suggesting that she’s actually okay with the idea that we actually love each other…”

“Did she say that?” Brian turned onto the main artery that would take them across town.

“Not in so many words…”

“Nope, just enough to suggest what you might want to hear. You’re her tool, Justin. Everyone’s a tool to her. Let me tell you about my sister, she is a real piece of work. She worshipped my Dad; in fact, her temperament is almost exactly like his, totally self-serving and right out there. My mother may have been a bitch on wheels, but at least she was consistent. With my dad, and with Claire, you never know. Her temper suits what she wants at the moment. You can’t believe anything they say.” He glanced over at Justin, whose mouth had dropped open. 

“I just figured…”

“Yes?”

“I just thought she was really upset that first time. She seemed so sincere yesterday.”

“The excessive crying, telling people what they want to hear… you think I didn’t know about that red dress? I figured it out about twenty minutes after I took off. In fact, I bet she actually went out and bought that thing herself, knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist dressing our mother up in Satan’s color.”

Justin stared at him. “Surely she wouldn’t go that far…”

Brian bit back a laugh at what sounded so endearingly naïve to him. He knew Justin wouldn’t appreciate his amusement. “I just haven’t been around Claire enough lately to clue in immediately. But her little visit to you behind my back brought it all back.” He hesitated, but added, “I’ve actually started being around *you* too much, you make me forget about things like Claire’s little tricks.”

“Thanks,” Justin acknowledged, a genuine smile gracing his lips. He reached out and stroked Brian’s shoulder.

“It’s not a compliment,” Brian snapped as he shrugged the hand off. “You make me forget things I should remember.”

“It is a compliment. And it should make you realize, while a lot of people are shits, not everyone is. The trick to living well is figuring out who’s who, and sticking with those of us who love you.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “Anyway… Claire’s like my father. Our mother hated him. And she hated Claire because Claire was like him. I was more like her, hate to admit it, but there it is. Single minded, and fairly sharp.”

“And not a little full of himself.”

“Yeah, okay, she was a self-absorbed cunt, and so am I. Happy?”

The tone made Justin draw his head back, and he drew his lips together tightly, afraid of saying the wrong thing. 

Brian glanced over at him. “I never wanted to drag you into any of my family shit.” His tone had changed yet again, tinged with regret, and softened. Justin took this as an apology.

“I can deal with it. I mean, this is tough for you, it would be for anyone, all this crap. And let me guess, your mother was moody when stressed, too…”

Lips twisted at that last. “I mean, I never wanted anyone else dragged into this. My life. I’m fucked up, okay? But it’s not just me, anyone I touch gets dragged in, they’re like emotional vampires, suck the life out of you. Claire’s visit, you think that surprised me? You asked me why I gave into her, why I turned that 180 yesterday?” At Justin’s silence, he continued, “If I didn’t go along with this, she would find a way to get to me through you. That was only the beginning, her lure of sweetness. She’d switch tactics, until one works. You were right. I need to just get this over with.”

“So… Claire’s the Borg? Resistance is futile…”

“You have to stop watching those Star Trek re-runs.”

“Maybe she’s sick. You wonder if she’s bipolar? Maybe all she needs is someone who really cares about her.”

“All she needs is love?” Brian snorted.

“It didn’t hurt you.”

Face off, Brian’s look sour, Justin’s patient. Finally, Justin gave in. “Don’t worry, Brian, I can handle her. Besides, I have you to protect me. Right?” He batted his lashes.

Brian only nodded, not sure if Justin was really kidding about that last part. Brian certainly took it seriously. He was more worried than he let on. No one “handled” Claire; that was part of the problem. She had a persecution complex, huge insecurities, and a need to control everything she came into contact with. She lied with little compunction, but the worst thing about her was that she believed her own lies; so when she told Justin “I always wondered what you were like” (yes, Brian had been standing outside the loft door for the entire conversation), she really meant, she had been interested in him since she realized he could be useful, probably somewhere around 10 a.m. that morning. But she had, actually, convinced herself that she had indeed been interested long before that morning, she had convinced herself she had been interested in Justin since becoming aware of his existence in her brother’s life years before. She believed that her interest was real and long-standing, when it was anything but. And Justin… well, Justin was a truly good person. And he’d had that innocent, idealistic part of him hurt enough by events in his life. Justin’s bones and skin were made of the same substance, there was no mask, it was all genuine. His deep structure was securely connected to what the world saw. Secure. That was the word. And Brian was damned if he was going to let anyone, himself included, ever allow that quality, the thing that made Justin move beyond attractive into truly beautiful, the thing Brian had finally figured out accounted for that dazzling glow of his partner, that genuineness (and he still couldn’t believe it, every time he thought about it, that Justin was even real, and that someone like that would be at all interested in someone like Brian, to actually really and truly love him), there was no way in hell he was going to allow that security of Justin’s spirit to be bruised as deeply as it had been, not ever again. Not if he had anything to do with it. 

But all he said was, “I’ll handle Claire. All you need to think about is handling me,” and he leered across the space

Justin’s turn for the eye roll. “I know it’s part of why you never wanted to get involved with anyone. It’s not just because your history made you think people would always screw you, it’s because you never wanted to have someone you cared about that much get hurt. It’s why you always kept Michael at arm’s length, isn’t it?”

Brian looked away. They had pulled up to his mother’s house; he parked in front on the street, and cut the engine. Justin took off his seat belt, then turned his body fully against Brian, who hadn’t moved. “I’m a lot tougher than Michael and you know it. We both know we can end up abandoned and alone because people suck, and shit happens. Even Michael could, he just doesn’t know it, he’s never had anything that drastic happen to him, but it could. I am going to go through this shit with you and it’s not going to shake me. Nothing will, not anymore. You shouldn’t doubt my ability to handle not just you, but all that shit that comes with you.”

Brian kissed him, softly, a kiss that lingered, their lips touching and holding, a kiss that conveyed all of the love he deeply felt for this incredible person. Maybe one day the vocal expression of those feelings would match his use of the physical expression of them. The actual words just didn’t feel natural; he wanted so much, when (when! It had to be *when*) he said them out loud, he wanted them to sound right, not to feel alien or strange when they emerged into the air between them. He loved Justin, deeply, and those feelings deserved the homage of rightness. He just didn’t know if that kind of vocalization was possible for him. It all went back to the very shit that he was dragging Justin into.

Justin’s smile, so gentle as he pulled away. “I love you too, Brian.”

Brian reached up and stroked his cheek, for just a moment. “You ready?”

“Yup.” 

***

Father Steven gave Justin the serious creeps. 

Claire had let them into the house, and Father Tom smiled warmly at Justin and Brian when they walked into the living room. No problem with Father Tom. He always had been quite easy to, uh, get along with. After a brief hello with Tom, Claire had introduced Father Steven. “Father Steven will actually be conducting the service.”

“Your mother was very generous with her time, and was devoted to the church. I’m moving to another church soon, but wanted to be sure to give her my last gift.”

Give her my last gift? Justin thought as he watched Brian’s hand clasped in the fat, graying priest’s hand. That’s a weird thing to say.

“And who might this be?” 

“I *am* Justin,” Justin replied. Brian glanced at him on hearing the edge in Justin’s voice.

“My brother’s boyfriend,” Claire added. She smiled at Justin, who gave her a lopsided grin in return. Snake or not, she was playing charmer, and he could handle that. Brian’s glance moved to his sister, and his lips twisted.

“Oh…” Father Steven said, but reached out and shook Justin’s hand. Justin felt his palm taken in by damp, cool skin. He shivered, a very bad reaction running through him, and pulled his hand away as soon as he could. What the fuck? he thought. 

“Why don’t we all sit?” Claire said. “Anyone want coffee?”

“Please,” Justin replied, desperate for something warm inside him. “Do you need help?” 

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” she waved him off as she left the room.

Damn, he thought, sitting on the couch, and scooting as close to Brian as he could without appearing to be weird about it, pressing his right thigh against Brian’s left. Brian looked over, raised an eyebrow, but placed his hand behind the small of Justin’s back, open palm warm. Justin sighed and relaxed, and Brian looked over again, murmured, “You okay?” Justin nodded once, and cut his gaze over to Father Steven. Brian followed his partner’s glance, wondering what Justin’s sudden stiffness was all about. Well, there were other things to be dealt with at the moment. He could ask Justin later.

“How did my mother die, Father Steven? I understand you discovered her body?” 

Father Tom opened his mouth to speak, but Father Steven cut him off. “Yes, unfortunately, so terrible. I had been in the office working, so I did not even know she was there. She must have been praying, alone in the church. No one else was there.”

“And no one else was around? Isn’t that, well, strange?” Justin asked. Maybe it wasn’t strange. He had no idea, really, why the scenario struck him that way; God knows he hadn’t been in a church since he’d been baptized as a formality as a baby. He had no idea what strange was when it came to Catholics. 

“The church’s doors are open to the public at specific times during the day, Justin,” Brian said. He apparently knew the policies. Justin wondered what Brian’s religious background was, exactly, beyond “Catholic.” He’d never asked him for details. It was not exactly a hot topic. 

“Yes, and Joan had access even when it wasn’t,” Father Tom said, his tone clipped. Father Steven’s eyes cut to the other priest, just for a second. 

Something was up, Justin thought. He just knew. He never talked about this sort of thing with Brian, or anyone for that matter; he could imagine the response. Still, he got these weird feelings every once in a while that alerted him to currents he had no way of understanding through any logical explanation. These feelings weren’t like voices, or anything that might be put into words. It was more like a sensation, sort of like a muse. When he got the urge to draw something; he would see something in the world that caught him, as if it had sharper edges than everything else, or glowed with a light of its own. Might only be a picture in his own head, but it spoke to him. Not exactly spoke, just presented itself, strongly. Some presence that his human consciousness was too undeveloped to clearly perceive, but could sense on the outer edges of instinctual knowledge, and only came to life after he’d started working the idea out on a piece of paper, or the computer screen. That was the best he could explain these odd sensations, and he’d tried to explain them, if only to himself. There was some connection that sometimes caught him in certain situations, resonating to his heart or soul or whatever you wanted to call it, opening up the future so he could read the future as if what was coming at him had already happened. Like that Kip Thomas thing. He’d known not only that Brian was going to be okay, he’d also known that Kip would cave to pressure applied, and so he’d sought him out and applied the pressure. He had felt guided by something beyond himself, and he hadn’t been nervous for a second, even though what he was doing was nothing short of blackmail, with no logical guarantee of success. And it wasn’t just Brian situations, either, although his instincts when it came to Brian were nothing short of perfect. Well, until after his head crushing. Then, he’d been blank for a long time, nothing vibrated, everything presented as a blank surface he could not penetrate. But then, when Brian had taken on the Stockwell campaign, suddenly there was that vibration again, and he had known he needed to act. THAT was scary, but only because it had been in opposition to Brian’s wishes. And still, he’d known, that instinct was telling him, everything was going to be fine if he did what he had just known had to be done. And everything had been fine. Thank god.

Here again, looking at Father Steven, something was just… off. He glanced over at Brian, who was listening to the priest express his sorrow at finding Joan, obviously dead, lying in the center aisle of the church, cold on the cold stone floor. She’d apparently tripped, and hit her head against a pew. They already knew, the autopsy had revealed a blood alcohol level of .18. Brian removed his arm from behind Justin’s back as Claire re-entered the room and placed the coffee service on the side table, and began pouring coffee for everyone. “Thanks,” Justin murmured, leaning forward and accepting a cup. 

Finally, Claire sat. “Father Steven,” she said, placing her cup in its saucer on the coffee table in front of her, “how is the service going to go? I think we just need to know what we need to do. Is there a form we follow?” She glanced over at Brian, who had crossed his arms over his chest, and was gazing blankly at the fat priest.

“Well, yes, actually,” Father Steven replied. “Many families prefer to have readings. There are places in the service where personal tributes can be worked, readings, for instance, should you want her grandchildren to read a poem, or a personal piece…”

“No.” Brian’s voice was abrupt. “Is it possible that you can just do one of the Catholic numbers, straight forward, right out of the book?”

“Brian,” Claire started, then stopped. She looked over at Father Tom. “Father Tom, I assume you could say something about my mother’s work in the church, how much it meant to her.”

“Oh, of course,” Father Steven replied in Tom’s stead, “She was just a gem in handling so much of the necessary work for the church, helping out with the needy, organizing the swap market fund raisers…”

“Fuck that,” Brian interrupted. Both priests visibly winced, but Brian didn’t appear to notice, or care. “Just the service, the graveside ashes to ashes bit. You want my input, Claire? You got it. Fuck the personal shit. I want this simple, straightforward, and over with as soon as possible.”

“You aren’t the only one who felt anything, Brian,” Claire snapped. 

“Oh, you think John’s going to want to get up and recite 2 Corinthians? Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous or boastful… like that travesty at Dad’s funeral? As if either of our parents knew anything about that passage, what it meant. I wanted to puke, I won’t put myself, or anyone else through that again.”

“Now, Brian, a funeral is a good time to bury any lingering feelings of anger…” Father Steven started, but stopped abruptly with the acidic glare turned his way.

Father Tom jumped in. “Funerals are, of course, more about the feelings of the living, and coming to terms with the larger specter of death. If you feel the straightforward service without embellishment is best, it may be the best for you. And, Claire, John has seemed upset enough by recent events. Brian may have the best idea, to have a simple service, and let everyone get through as best he can.”

“Or she can,” Claire replied, and sighed. “I suppose.”

“You know I’m right.” 

Justin wondered at the steely edge in Father Tom’s voice. He watched the look that passed between the priest and Brian’s sister, and then he glanced over to Father Steven, who was busy studying his fingertips, then over at Brian, whose entire body language was stiff, and defiant, his arms crossed over his chest, legs sprawled out. Brian saw Justin staring at him, and raised an eyebrow. Justin offered a small smile, that seemed to shake Brian out of his mood, slightly. He sat forward. “Good, Claire, are we in agreement on that one? Father Steve here wants to give mother his… what was that? The final gift of your tongue?”

“I’d like to conduct the service, yes,” Steven blushed slightly. Justin put a hand on Brian’s thigh, which Brian ignored, completely, not even a relaxing of the muscles beneath his palm. Okay, then…

“Fine. Claire, straightforward, then?”

“All right,” his sister agreed, looking into her cup of coffee. 

“Okay, then,” Brian said. “Now, about the wake. You get the afternoon viewing, I’ll be there for the 7-9. Got a problem with that?”

Claire shook her head, saying nothing, still not looking up. There was silence. 

“Fine,” Brian finished. “Father Tom, I want to see the spot where my mother died.”

Father Tom started at that, frowned, and hesitated. “You want to see…”

“Yeah, you know where it is, right? I want to see it.” He stood, grabbed Justin’s forearm, and hauled him up. Justin managed to get on his feet without spilling his coffee all over himself, and set the cup down on the coffee table. 

“Certainly, Brian, if you feel it will help you,” Father Tom said, standing himself. 

“Okay, Claire, you need me, you know where we’ll be.” He paused, laughed. “Well, out fucking’s not quite exact, is it? You have my cell phone number, right?”

Claire looked away. Father Steven practically fled the room in front of them. Father Tom just shook his head. 

***

“Care to explain that?” Justin asked, staring at Brian’s profile as he drove them toward the church.

“What?”

“What do you mean, what? You think you could have done more to offend the priests?”

“Tom hardly deserves my respect, I’ve been in that man’s ass. And Father Steven… give Joan a final gift. She was just a fucking gem to the church, wasn’t she?”

Justin decided not to address this; it didn’t seem to be the right time. “Why are we going to see where your mother died? Isn’t that kind of…” He let the suggestion hang, not really sure what it was. Creepy. Weird. Morbid. Pick one. 

Brian glanced over at him, and didn’t speak for a long moment. Finally, he took a deep breath. “Last time I left that church, I vowed I wouldn’t be back. And here I am. Okay, not exactly the same as returning with Joan alive and lording it over me, but still.” He wasn’t going to tell Justin that he felt Joan’s advantage on home turf was too great in that place, and he felt, well, diminished, like he was a kid again, whenever he walked into the church. God, just think of how outrageously Joan had spoken to him at Kinnetik, where he was Master of the Universe! Well, at least owner of the company. She had no comfort zone or support within the walls of Kinnetik, and still she somehow reduced him to that angry (okay, scared) kid again. Bad enough, the way she spoke to him there. The church was enemy territory, the way his mother reduced his sense of self lingered over the place. He wanted to experience it alone, before he had to face that again, with an audience of family and friends of Joan Kinney, an audience of the enemy, watching him, watching. But he only said in response to Justin’s question, “I want to see it before the funeral, so I don’t do something like a jig over the spot. If I need to do that, I want to do it when no one else is around. It’s going to be strange enough, being in that place….”

Justin eyed him. A jig? Was he kidding? “Yeah, I guess I can understand that,” Justin answered, letting it go. He was glad, in any case, that the subject of discomfort had come up. “Father Steven really weirded me out. Did he strike you as, well, off?”

The breath exploded from Brian’s lips in an incredulous burst. “All priests strike me as off. Steven’s right up there.”

“Well, I know he pissed you off, but it was something else I couldn’t put my finger on…” 

“He’s obviously completely repressed.” 

“You think he’s gay?”

Brian shrugged. “Not necessarily. But he’s got a bug up his ass on a sexual level.” 

“You think he’s a pervert?”

“Jesus Christ, what is this? What difference does it make? All I wanted him to do was shut his mouth about Saint Joan and tell me what I wanted to hear! All right?”

Justin shut his mouth. Whoa. Then he ventured, “All right. Brian… Are you gonna be okay?”

“Just fucking peachy.” The rest of the ride was in silence. Luckily, it didn’t take too long.

***

“She died right here.” Father Tom indicated a spot three pews back from the front, in the central aisle, to the right side. “They think she hit her head on the corner of this pew.” 

There was a new runner that covered the right side of the central carpet. “We will have to replace this section of the carpet; it’s stained with her blood.” Brian lifted the small runner that had been placed over the spot, revealing the slightly darker red of the original red carpet. He dropped the smaller piece back down. “Left her blood staining the church, bet she died happy.”

“Brian.” Father Tom directed his attention to himself. “I am sorry you never got to make your peace with your mother. If it’s any consolation, she told me she loved you.”

Brian shook his head. “Joan didn’t know what love was.”

“Yes, she could not accept the lifestyle choice you made.”

“Coming from you?” Brian sat at the end of the third pew, “I’m afraid I can’t credit your opinion much either.” 

Justin hovered back from this conversation. 

Father Tom sighed. “I know. She said she loved me on more than one occasion; I told her what she loved was what I represented. She just smiled, I don’t think she understood what I meant.”

“How could she? You never allowed her the courtesy of taking off that priestly mask you’ve got on. But,” Brian sighed, “we both know how wonderful a person my mother was, if she discovered anything resembling human beings, as opposed to the perfection that is your God.”

“I can understand your pain,” Father Tom soothed. “We all live our lives the best we can. And you found love, despite how you perceive your parents’ interests in you. Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive your mother?”

“She never asked me to,” Brian stated, turning his eyes to the front of the church.

Justin felt a constriction around his chest at Brian’s tone. He looked up at the high, vaulting ceiling, then over to the shadowy corners at the far aisles where the pews ended. The place was huge, and cold. 

“I understand what you’re trying to do,” Brian continued, “Not that I don’t appreciate it.” Justin heard his tone, though, knew this was his “pretense-at-concession-while-trying-to-get-this-person-the-fuck-away-from-me voice. “Do you think you could give us a few minutes, Father Tom? I’d like some time, alone.”

It seemed to work. “Certainly,” Tom replied. “I’ll lock up, I’m on my way out anyway. Exit at the sacristy, just make sure the door shuts behind you.”

Brian nodded, and continued to stare hard at the giant crucifix hanging above the altar, just beneath the stained glass window. Justin looked around, felt the hushed atmosphere, watched Brian’s grim countenance settle on the cross, at the bloody figure hanging off of it. Why do they want to scare people like that? Justin wondered. He wondered, too, if that was the last thing Joan saw, and wondered how it could possibly have made her feel in her last moments. Comforted? He couldn’t imagine. “I can go, too, if you need a moment,” he said, in the low voice this place seemed to demand of him. Brian’s arms were draped over the pew in front of him. He looked up at Justin, an inscrutable expression on his face. His lips relaxed, and he smiled slightly as he stood, and took Justin by the elbow. “Is he gone?”

The side door slammed shut. “Apparently.”

Brian stood, and walked Justin up to the front of the church, until they reached the railing that separated the altar from the congregation, Justin resisted. “I’m not Catholic.”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to see the view from up here?” Brian slid his hand down to slip into Justin’s, tugging him up the three steps, to just in front of the altar. “Besides, don’t you want to share a moment of my youth?”

He couldn’t say he didn’t. “Which moment are we talking about?” Justin asked, allowing himself to be propelled to the altar. He looked at the cloth-covered bulk at the center, the candles on either end.

“I was an altar boy,” Brian told him. He moved to a seat against the wall, to the right of where Justin stood, watching him. “I used to sit in this seat…” he sat, “…and watch the people in the congregation. There were two guys, a married man probably in his twenties, and a kid, a little older than me. Something about them… I would sit here, and not hear a word of the sermon. I could see my mother’s face, she would have me pinned in her gaze, waiting for me to fuck up. If she decided I did, when we got home she’d tell Jack. He didn’t go to church. But he was willing to let me know exactly how big a failure I was, that I would never amount to anything. Detail exactly how big a piece of shit I was. And she would stand there, her lips a tight line, arms crossed over her chest, nodding.” Brian’s eyes turned from the empty pews over to Justin. “Good thing a hard on was concealed in all those robes. The other altar boy and I would fool around sometimes. But only in the back. I had a fantasy of fucking him on the altar.” He seemed lost in that thought for long moments. Then his eyes refocused, centered on Justin, who held himself motionless at the center of the hallowed space. Brian stood, and approached his lover, who began to shake his head, mouthing, “No.” When Brian continued toward him, Justin said aloud, “No, Brian, no, no fu…” he stopped, appalled at his use of that word in this place, and corrected himself, “no, no way.”

But Brian continued to stalk through the space, moving to the altar itself. He took first one candle, then the other, and place them both on the floor behind him. Then he lifted the sacramental service – apparently the whole thing was on a tray - and placed it to the side. “Come here.” 

“No.” Justin couldn’t move, not even to back away. Everything in him screamed to back off, but he couldn’t. He was trapped by that expression in Brian’s face, determination along with fierce conviction, combined with raging, hot lust, freezing Justin where he stood. 

“This place… it trapped me. It condemned me. Everything I was. It took my mother, turned her against any chance I had to experience something like love, this place that says it is what love is and doesn’t know shit about it, and it sucked the life and warmth from her and then it killed her. I wanted to take Timmy Ellsworth and fuck him on the altar of this church since I was fifteen, and until this very moment that desire has always burned inside me. But now I have you, and you’re even better for what I need to do. You have given me more than this place, more than anyone in this place ever did. I need to fuck you, Justin, I need to fuck you right now, to take what you give me, to take it here, in this place that has taken so much of what’s mine, this place that had no right to take all it has, to take you and take back what’s been taken from me.” The words, seductive in their rhythm, their low cadence, the power behind them, the power of a conviction that commanded and would not take no for an answer. Inexorable, relentless, irresistible. “Come here.” 

Justin swallowed into a suddenly dry throat. Dry with dread? Or a mounting desire that had wormed down into his bones, from Brian’s voice, into his ear, into his blood, his beating heart. “Brian…” But Brian was unrelenting, Justin’s words did not affect the tension radiating from Brian’s body. “It’s just… we can’t,” he finished weakly, one last token resistance, even as he heard his own voice echoing to him from across the years, as he had once spoken to Daphne, “He can do anything he wants.” And it was that that had seduced him, all along. The face of god.

“Come here.” Irresistible.

And he felt his legs carry him forward, to stand in front of this man whose intense gaze blazed out at him, reminding him of those preachers he had glimpsed on those religious programs, fierce in their conviction of their right, their attachment to the glory of something greater than themselves, that same fiery gaze now pinning him against the wood of the altar he felt in his mid-back, before he was grabbed by the hips and hauled upward, sitting at Brian’s chest level. The top button of his jeans was ripped open, the zipper torn down, and he was forced back, with Brian’s mouth on his engorged cock. “Brian… you can’t,” he moaned, even as Brian did, and even as Justin felt himself leaning back, falling back, so he was sprawled out across the altar, his legs over Brian’s shoulders as he was taken by the sensations of lips, of tongue, of worship on his body, and couldn’t resist. “God…” he gasped, and his open eyes took in the cross overhead. “Brian,” he managed to get out, in one last weak attempt to turn away what he really didn’t want to stop, grabbing a handful of chestnut hair and yanking Brian’s head up. But Brian twisted out of his grip, his mouth descending determinedly, all of his years of skill in this particular act coming into play, and with the final curling lick around the head of Justin’s dick, Justin gasped and came, the hands in Brian’s hair not pulling him away any longer, but pushing him closer, down further, as he surged up against the back of his partner’s throat. 

Brian thoroughly licked him clean, and then hauled himself onto the altar, turning Justin so he lay face down on the hard surface. Justin lay gasping, shocked at the force of his orgasm, and he felt his pants yanked down, heard Brian’s zipper, then the tear of foil, the pop of a cap, the sudden cold of liquid on him, and the sensation as Brian pushed into him, hard, filling him. His senses revived, and he scrabbled with his hands in an attempt to hold onto the edge of the wood as his jeans held his legs captive, the skin of his stomach catching the smooth surface as Brian’s hard thrusts inside him allowed him nothing to hold onto, no purchase at all. Brian’s harsh gasps resounded in his ear, and he felt his hand curl into his hair, as the other descended over his shoulder to catch the forward trajectory of his body, keeping him in place. Oh, fuck, he thought, as Brian’s heartbeat pounded against his back, the breath at his neck increased, and then a harsh gasp in his ear, and groan, and the pulsations hard inside of him, on and on, lasting a very long time, even for the very accomplished sexual being now holding him, tightly locking them together. 

Justin lay in the quiet after, stunned. The stillness after the explosive release of whatever that was, the stillness was palpable. Holy shit, he thought. What the fuck was that? Something huge. And long-standing. He thought of the time Pink Floyd had come on the radio in the car, and Brian had turned up the sound at the lyrics, “And if I/show you my dark side/would you still hold me/tonight? And if I open my heart to you/show you my weak side/what would you do?” He had turned to Justin with an eyebrow raised, and Justin had laughed at him.

Justin wasn’t laughing now. 

“Let me up,” he commanded, and Brian rolled off him without hesitation, and lay on his back, his arms spread out. Justin adjusted his clothes, and turned to Brian, cleaning him up, grimacing at the full condom he was going to have to carry out of the church, and then just sighed, and zipped up Brian’s jeans. He got off the altar, letting himself down carefully, and took Brian’s hand. Brian was staring up at the cross, his face grim. “Brian.” The hazel regard turned to him, slightly glazed. “Get down.”

When he had Brian propped against the side of the altar, Justin straightened the cloth (I mean, how do you suggest to the priests that they might want to wash that? or even throw it out?) put the candles and sacramental service back up on the altar, hoping everything was in the right place. Was there a candle specifically for the left side, one for the right? Fuck if he knew. He didn’t even really care much, not at the moment. He supposed he’d lie awake tonight, worrying, but that worry was for later. He had a much more immediate concern; it leaned against the altar. He grabbed Brian’s hand, and led him out of the church. 

Once in the open air, he took a long, deep breath and turned his face toward the sun, amazed that it was still shining. He felt as if he had stepped out of his own tomb; the fresh air against his cheek had never been more welcome. Brian was staring straight ahead, that frozen look cemented on his face. “Brian, give me the keys.” Woodenly, his command was followed. Justin led Brian down to the Corvette, and opened the passenger side, sitting Brian, who did not protest being placed into the unfamiliar position, into the car. Justin went to the driver’s side, and slid behind the wheel. He shut the door, but rolled down his window. Then he turned to Brian, who avoided his gaze. “Care to share what that was all about?” 

“I told you, you shouldn’t be in the middle of all this.” 

“And I told you I could handle it. I’m pretty sure that was the dirtiest thing we’ve ever done.” 

He received that same grim look, but at least Brian had lifted his eyes, and was looking at him. “I just… fuck.” 

“And you fuck amazingly well. But that may have been pushing even your limits.”

“You went over them with me.”

“I went out over that edge with you, yeah. I told you I would. But that was plain fucked up.” And he was getting horny recalling it. “Hot, but fucked up.”

“Hot as hell, huh.” 

Justin’s breath caught. “No, not like hell. Not like hell at all. Like the release of a lot of pent-up anger and confusion of a flesh and blood kid watching a faceless, made up superbeing getting all the love and attention he isn’t getting, but desperately wants. Desperately needs.”

Brian visibly started, and his eyes locked on Justin’s, softening with a vulnerability and confusion Justin had had rarely seen. Brian sucked his lips into his mouth, bit down on them. Then he released the grip his teeth had on the tender flesh. “Maybe I’m not so okay.” 

Justin let out a deep breath he had not known he was holding. “Pretty big demons have been having their way with you the last week. I kind of expected that.” 

“I didn’t.” The expression, so lost for that brief moment, turned off as if a switch had been thrown, but Justin felt the sadness it had reflected continue on inside himself. Brian turned to look for the seat belt as Justin started the engine. “How did you end up behind the wheel of my car?”

Justin glanced over his shoulder, checking the blind spot. “I think I should be driving right now, don’t you?”

Brian slumped back in the seat. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But don’t get used to it.”

As if you’d let me, Justin thought. He drove in silence. Then, Brian said, “I think maybe I should go through my stuff that was left at Joan’s house.”

Justin glanced at him. “Okay,” he answered. 

“After the funeral. We should get Michael to help with that.” 

Justin looked away, back at the road. “Okay.” We. We should get Michael to help. Justin had no idea why “we” would want to do that, but “we” would most likely get answers to that question eventually. He glanced over at Brian, seeing only the back of his head as he stared out the window. Obviously, he thought, we are not as certain as we usually are about any of this. I’m glad “we” figured that out.

Author’s Note: It’s about time I started thanking Carlyn, a truly awesome beta, not just for fixing up the glitches in my writing, and her ability to remind me of details I’ve missed or mistaken from past episodes (to say nothing of my own earlier chapters!), but also for her wondrous contribution in brainstorming sessions. I’m lucky to have the bootiest beta willing to work with my stuff.


	7. Chapter VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They attend Joan's wake, then shake it off at Babylon.

You look nice,” Debbie observed, as Justin took a seat at the counter of the diner. He was wearing dark grey – charcoal pants, light grey shirt underneath a dark grey cashmere sweater, dark and light grey patterned tie, shot through with the slenderest of yellow threads, picking up the gleam of his freshly-washed hair.

“Wake,” Justin explained.

Her face melted into sympathy upon his words, and she nodded. “Want anything?”

“Just water.”

She poured out a glass of water, returning to set the well-scratched glass of water in front of him. Then she leaned onto her forearms, and fixed him in her eye, with the “I’m-fuckin’-serious” look. “How’s he doin’, honey?” 

Justin shrugged, sipped at his water. “Not great. But not for the reasons you’d think.”

“What, he’s itching to dance on his mother’s grave, but has to keep it bottled up until after all this ceremonial family and church shit, but it all keeps leaking out so he escapes it by pouring that rotgut down his throat? Fucking everything in sight? You mean, the shit he’s used to dealing with just took a turn in an unexpected direction, so he’s become Brian distilled, acting strange even for him, while pretending that nothing’s changed?” She snapped her gum, grinned at his look. “I know him, Sunshine, probably better than you. Oh, I don’t mean with the crap like what soap he likes or where he likes to be licked. Well, actually, with what I hear around here, maybe that last one… but you know what I mean. I’ve been watching Brian for a long time. I got a grip on that boy.” 

He hesitated. She had been only partly right, but close enough. Still, he wasn’t sure he should confide his worries.

“Come on,” Debbie encouraged. “You know you want to say something, spit it out.”

“You don’t know everything, Deb,” Justin told her. “He’s got family coming to this thing, and as far as I can telling he’s outing himself, more or less.”

“By bringing you. That a problem for you?”

Justin shook his head. “He’s not exactly one to discuss these things, he just does them. But, I’m wondering, if this is the right way to do it.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Well, shouldn’t this sort of decision, outing yourself after years of not making an issue of it. Shouldn’t that kind of decision be made at a less emotionally fraught time?”

“Well, I’m not sure what ‘fraught’ means, but let me ask you, how’d your family find out about you being gay? Seems like you fraught that one out.” Debbie laughed at her own joke, and Justin joined her, feeling slightly better for it.

“Point taken,” he said. 

“Listen, Justin, Brian’s family, and his mother’s friends, they should have known about this a long time ago. Yes, I know, he had a hell of a childhood, and it’s always easier to just let things slide and not deal with them. Claire knew, his immediate family knew eventually. But if he had let this fact of his life out in a more general way years ago, you wouldn’t be sitting here ‘frought-ing’ yourself.”

“Fretting.”

“Oh, okay! I know what that means. Look, honey, it’s always been his choice, to not let people know who he really is. If Joan had known sooner, maybe she wouldn’t have been so much in his life, and he would have been better off in the long run. But it’s no good thinking about ‘shoulds’ – all you need to do is stand by him and support him. He needs you now, whether he’ll ever admit to that or not. I’d say him having you by his side through this makes your position, and his position where you stand pretty clear. This isn’t just a finger to his family. It’s a message he’s sending you, more than them. You’re a smart kid! I know you’re smart enough to know where the line in bad behavior is, if Brian goes over it. Has he?”

Justin hesitated, then shook his head.

“Well,” Deb continued, “I would say his asking you to help him get honest with his people is NOT over the line. Oh, hang, on, I’ll be right back” And she turned away to take the order of a young man who had settled in at the end of the counter. 

Justin just nodded. He thought, let’s just pull that line back to exclude the altar of Joan’s church. That was… he felt his heart rate pick up, and wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but willed it down. 

“Hey.”

He hadn’t heard Brian enter the diner, so the soft lips on the back of his neck made him jump slightly. “Oh, hey,” he said, turning his head to receive a kiss on the lips. 

Debbie returned. “How you doing? You look nice.” 

“I’m fabulous. How else would I be?”

“Cut the shit, kiddo. I know you’re not looking forward to this.”

“I’ll be fine, Deb. I am fine. Are you coming to the funeral?”

“Didn’t know I was invited. I wasn’t exactly a friend of your mother’s.”

“Good enough to deliver the news of my late great illness,” Brian snorted.

Debbie looked away, then back. “Do you want me there, Brian?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

She studied his face for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll come with Michael. I’d love to be there for you, honey.”

Brian shrugged, and turned back to Justin. “Are you ready?”

“Are you?”

“Born ready.”

“That campaign’s run its course, time to come up with a new slogan,” Justin teased.

“Hah.” The look on Brian’s face turned serious. “You sure you want to do this? Liam’s father, my Uncle Mike, he’s kind of… he was in the navy. He never really came back from his last voyage.”

“What, he’s crazy?”

“Well,” Brian replied, placing his hand on the small of Justin’s back as they walked out of the diner. “He’s military. Even if he did blow up his last Nazi 60 years ago.”

***

Brian’s Uncle Mike was 83 years old. He looked 70. He was completely bald, with a long nose like a hawk, that he peered out over with sharp black eyes. Liam trailed behind him, his significant frame somehow dwarfed by his father’s presence, although the man was a good two inches shorter, and at least 30 pounds shy. “Claire. Brian. I am so sorry to hear about your mother.”

“Thank you, Uncle Mike,” Claire responded, barely, the last of the sentence swallowed somewhere back in the throat. Brian studied her from the corner of his eye before cutting back to his uncle. 

“Uncle Mike. You came a ways.” Mike lived in Boston.

“She was my sister-in-law. It’s the least I can do, pay my respects. Now you two are left to carry on. When are you going to reproduce, Brian?”

Great. Here we go. Every time he’d seen the man since he was 23 (thank god he could count the number on one hand). Babies! Give us babies! Sow your seed in the world, fulfill your duty to family! Mike had not had a great deal of respect for his younger brother, though he voiced a great deal of respect for the idea of family, or, at least, the need to add to it. Brian avoided looking behind Mike at Liam’s grin upon that familiar refrain from the man. Liam quickly suppressed his smile. It was a wake, for God’s sake. There was a corpse not twenty-five feet away at the far end of the room, across from where Brian and Claire stood, receiving those who came to pay their respects. 

“I think you better be happy with Claire’s kids, Uncle Mike,” Brian hedged.

Uncle Mike frowned. “But those aren’t Kinneys. Those are, what’cha, anyway, not Kinneys.”

“Don’t you worry, Pop, I’ll give you some one day.”

“Yeah, I’m not holding my breath,” Uncle Mike retorted, glaring at Liam and then back at Brian. “I’m going to go pay my respects, we’ll talk later.”

Brian sighed as Uncle Mike marched away, down to the coffin. Liam moved closer. “So! When are you going to introduce my dad to Justin?”

“We just may skip that one,” Brian answered, glancing around the room. Only a few people were there, including Mrs. Leslie, a small bit of a woman dressed in black who had greeted him in great consolation, and now hovered at the margins about the mourners, looking sad. 

Mike had gone to the coffin, and had dropped to kneel, to pray over Joan’s corpse. 

“You think he’s praying for her to prepare his way? Please, St. Joan, make sure I’ve got a ticket?” Brian asked. What the fuck did people pray over corpses, anyway?

“I’m gonna pray it’s HIM next.” 

Claire turned swiftly on the two men standing next to her. “You will not make this a sideshow about your personal issues! Not about your queerdom,” she glared at Brian, “not about your battle with your father!” She glared at Liam. 

“Queerdom, Claire?” Brian raised an eyebrow.

“Just, can you please try to remember, this is a wake, have some respect. Keep your fights with your father out of this room, Liam. And try not to paw your… your, Justin, Brian.” 

“Hey, he packs those fights and takes him when he travels, what am I supposed to do?” Liam asked. “I’m gonna go keep your Justin company, Brian.”

“Yeah,” Brian answered, not contradicting the term Claire had invoked. My Justin. He watched Liam make his way to where Justin sat, watching John play a video game, over on the chairs set up across the room. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was on 7:30. Half an hour, and he would be free to “circulate,” or as he liked to think of it, stop having to play nice. Thirty minutes. Anyone coming in later could find him if they wanted. He had no idea why the fuck he was doing this. What was the point?

***

Justin wasn’t bored, he was puzzled. He had moved over to the only other person in the room he even sort of knew, as Brian and Claire had positioned themselves at the start of his interminable wait, and sat down in the chair next to where John was sitting. This attested to his desperation for mental occupation, to a certain degree. John was playing with a GameBoy, and Justin felt a stab of envy. He was still fairly young himself, and sometimes, having to school himself to act more mature than he actually was… well, it kind of sucked sometimes. Worth every moment, since the prize was life with Brian. But still. He would love to get his hands on that game. Go sit in the bathroom and scream at the villains as he kicked their ass. He blamed Michael for this bad influence. Michael loved video games, and was starting to stock them at the store. Justin was a little addicted to Kingdom Hearts at the moment. Sure, Disney was the ultimate evil heterosexual breeder brainwashing bullshit. He was still addicted to that damn game. Anything was better than thinking about that dead body across the room, even checking out what John was doing. Open viewings gave him the willies. Catholics were fucking creepy; Brian seemed to have no problem shaking his ass in their arcane temples; what was the expression, familiarity breeds contempt? But it was all strange hocus-pocus to Justin, and he got shivers, not in a good way, over the weird attachment to some past tradition, as if the chanting and darkness and symbols linked directly back to when evil actually did walk the earth.

“What you playing?” Justin asked, taking the seat next to John.

John didn’t glance up; he stared at the tiny screen unblinkingly, his thumbs and fingers spasmodically pushing buttons. “Mortal Kombat, Tournament edition,” he answered. Something went wrong, he groaned. At this break in the action, he glanced up at Justin. “Oh. You.” 

“Yeah. Me. I kick ass at this game on Xbox.”

“Huh, totally different on the GameBoy.” 

“Bet I could kick your ass.”

“You ain’t getting near my ass. Just a second. Hang on.” John pushed several buttons. “Head to head. You go first. Only, we gotta keep it down or she’ll take it away. That’s why it’s on mute. Same buttons as Xbox, basically, just, the back buttons here,” he pointed, “and the control stick’s the arrow buttons, okay?”

Justin glanced across the room; no one was watching them. He took the game from John, said, “You’re on. But, when the room starts filling up, I gotta pretend I’m an adult again.”

John smirked. “Lucky you.” 

Sarcastic shit, Justin thought, looking down at the screen. 

Five minutes later, his ass was seriously kicked. 

“Man, you suck at this,” John said, taking the game back. Justin watched the kid focus on the game. 

“How are you doing, John?” he asked. 

John didn’t look up. “Kicking your ass. Told ya. I’m already way ahead.”

“I always find those games kind of… hard to watch, sometimes. Then I remind myself, they’re just games.”

“What, you don’t know the difference between death on screen and something like the dead body across the room?”

Shit, he had the Kinney blood, all right. Sarcasm and hardness, like second nature. One suit of armor issued upon birth. Take it, kid, you’ll need this. “No,” Justin answered, “it just reminds me of getting hit in the head with a bat a couple years ago.” It was a risk, but he was easier with bringing the subject up this day. 

And he began to suspect his instincts for how to get to this kid were right when John hit a button, put the game on pause, and actually looked up. “You got hit in the head with a bat?”

“Yup. I was in a coma for a long time. Messed me up real bad.”

“What, were you playing baseball? You play baseball?” John eyed him up and down, seriously questioning the possibility. 

Justin shook his head. “No…” He wondered why he started this, again. The kid had seemed so distant. He hated that, being ignored. Maybe he really did need to start acting like an adult again, not letting John’s indifference get to him. John’s attitude bothered him, though, and even now, he couldn’t let it go. Ever since his insane accusations of Brian. So young, and so hardened. It was just wrong. “There was this guy who was pretty pissed off that I’m gay. So he tried to kill me.”

“No shit. Well, maybe you can’t blame him.” John glanced back at the game.

Justin felt his heart pause, then race. Oh, hell, what did he expect from the little shit. Talk about games, that was safe. Anything else… not so much.

But John looked back at him. “Did you do something to him? Like feel him up?”

How the fuck did he get into this conversation again? “Uh. We made out.” Like he was going to tell the kid more than that. “But he enjoyed it.” 

“Maybe he remembers it different. Maybe he didn’t like it at all.” John was staring at the screen, but he hadn’t turned the game back on. In fact, he sat very still.

“That’s no reason to take a bat to my head.” 

John jerked his head up, glared at Justin, eyes blazing. “I know the difference between kicking someone’s ass on video, and that,” he said, nodding toward the coffin. His voice was low and tight. He sounded about ten years older than his actual age. His eyes caught onto the sight of his grandmother’s pallid face, just visible above the lip of the walnut casket, his great uncle beginning to kneel at the side of the box. Something shifted in John’s eyes, and he turned back into a young, very young kid; he seemed to shrink down into himself. “No one deserves that,” he whispered. “Nobody…” He looked back at the game, but still his hands did not move.

“John…” Justin started, not sure what he was planning to say. What the fuck? Had he been that close to his grandmother? 

“Hey, Justin!” 

Justin looked up, saved from having to figure this one out by the appearance of Liam. John bolted, not looking back. Justin watched the boy retreat, to disappear past his mother and Brian, ignored by both of them. 

Liam dropped into the seat John had just vacated. “How soon before we can get a drink?” 

Justin glanced at his watch and sighed. Too long.

***

The room was filling up, mostly with women Brian had never met, although they professed to know him. Claire introduced them; apparently they attended Joan’s church, or played bridge with her. Or cards. On introduction, they had invariably clucked with sorrow that they had not had the pleasure until now, of meeting the son Joan spoke so highly of. One sallow biddy’s response was fairly typical: “Joan was always going on about how successful you were. It was a shame your work didn’t allow you to spend more time together.”

“Yes,” Brian responded. “A shame.” He glanced over at the side of the room where Justin sat, Liam next to him. Then he looked at his watch. 7:50. Ten minutes, ten more minutes, and he would get off Claire’s idea of a reception line, consisting of him and her. And go sit next to his partner. And resist the urge to lay his head down in his lap, and feel Justin’s fingers weave into his hair, that soothing feeling, a feeling he’d never admit to needing, that Justin knew about anyway. 

Damn. Five minutes now. Five minutes that dragged, as Claire asked him when he planned to show up the next day at their mother’s house, if they could talk about dealing with dispersal of the assets, maybe talk about hiring a lawyer (he knew that meant, maybe him hiring a lawyer), and could he please go through his stuff in the attic? It was fine if he wanted her to have all the contents of the house (and sure, that was fine, he knew the veneer of neutrality that overlay the fear tautening her tone, a fear that he would change his mind and decide he wanted the silver). To which he replied, after the funeral. After the funeral. After the funeral. And yes, Justin had convinced him to pick up the stuff he wanted. No, not the silver. And Michael was coming to help him. Of course, she remembered Michael. 

Finally, when his watch informed him 8:00 had been reached, he turned to his sister and stated, “That’s it, Claire, I’m done with the meet and greet. If anyone needs me, I’ll be grieving in the corner.” His sister’s face set, but she just turned away, and looked toward her mother’s body.

Brian reached the two men sitting at the side of the room, and Justin stood. “Hey,” he said, touching Brian’s arm. “How are you doing?”

“What I want to know is when we can get out of here and get a drink.” Liam kicked Brian’s shoe with his, an old habit from childhood. Lord knew, no one in their family actually touched each other.

Brian looked down at Liam. “You read my mind. One hour, fifteen minutes, and someone remind me why we didn’t set up a bar for this thing?” 

“Claire.” 

“Ah, yes. Claire. My mother would have been terribly displeased. No alcohol.” 

Liam chuckled slightly, but this pleasant sound ceased immediately upon the advent of another.

“Brian!” Uncle Mike came up behind him, and planted himself at the side of Brian Justin did not occupy. “I wanted to tell you, your obituary of your mother. Three grandchildren, should be corrected.”

“It’s correct,” Brian answered. “Uncle Mike, this is Justin.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Justin said, shaking the man’s hand. Uncle Mike had the perfect handshake; firm, warm, dry, one pump, released. 

Uncle Mike grunted, ignoring his nephew’s lover, intent on the issue at hand. “What do you mean, correct? Did I miss something?”

“I have a son.”

Pause. Liam watched from the sidelines, gleefully waiting for the old bastard to get thrown. 

“And I don’t know about this because…”

“He’s not a Kinney.” 

“Course he’s a Kinney! He’s your blood, that’s a Kinney! Who’s the mother?”

“A friend of mine. She’s gay. I was the donor. He has the blood, not the name.” He could have been more explicit. What was it about staring in the face of an older generation? It was as though his terms became subject to another, better established set of terms, and he could no longer claim the language for himself, but had to stay inside the definitions of what was considered acceptable to this other, older person. 

“Huh. Why advertise it then, if there’s no connection?”

“Mourning is for the living, Uncle Mike, not the dead. I have a relationship with my son. My mother didn’t approve of my life. But that doesn’t mean I’m ashamed of it.” As he spoke to his uncle, his hand crept up Justin’s back, onto the warm skin of his neck, his fingers weaving into the soft hair at Justin’s nape, subconsciously recreating the very caress he craved. 

Uncle Mike stared, understanding. He was many things; he was not a fool. There was a long pause, as Mike finally took Justin’s presence in. Then, he said, slowly, “You’re right. She wouldn’t approve. Neither can I. You would never have survived the navy. We had a way of taking care of guys like you.”

Justin drew in his breath as he felt Brian’s hand still, but it was Liam who spoke up. “Maybe, Pops, if you’d had actually left the navy all those years ago instead of taking it with you, you wouldn’t have to find out about the members of your family this way. Maybe there’d be room for us.”

“You too? Don’t tell me, you’re queer too?” Uncle Mike rounded on his son, relieved that he could turn from a confrontation he hadn’t expected, to one he was familiar with. “Why am I not surprised?”

“What would you know about it? You don’t know shit about me, you don’t even want to,” Liam answered. 

“Watch your mouth,” Uncle Mike answered. “I suggest you say your goodbyes to your aunt, it’s the least you can do.” He then turned back to Brian and Justin. “I’ll be at the funeral tomorrow. But I’ll be there for her. And Claire. Not for you.” He turned, and left 

Liam watched him go, as Justin looked up at Brian’s impassive face. “How long for drinks?” Liam asked, again, plaintively. 

Justin laughed, a choked sound, and buried his head into Brian’s shoulder, drawing stares from around the room as Brian’s arm came around his back, drawing his lover closer. Justin looked up at the older man. “I think he was right about one thing.”

“Really?” Brian chuckled. “Only you would find something of value in a ton of shit.”

“Hey, look what I found in you, a buried diamond,” Justin returned. 

Brian rolled his eyes. 

“Now I know you’re an artist,” Liam groaned.

But Justin would not be distracted. “Seriously. You should say goodbye to your mother.”

“Say… Why?”

“It’s the last time you’ll see her in any way. At least let yourself see her in red.”

“It’s quite the scandal,” Liam added.

“Yeah…” Brian actually wished he hadn’t gone along with Claire’s little plot. Joan really did look bad in red. And it was petty. He did not do petty. Well, Justin would say he hadn’t been himself that day, otherwise he would have resisted the impulse toward the red dress when Claire had manipulated him into the choice. He looked down at the beautiful man at his side. Yeah, before Justin, he would have just castigated himself for having been duped. Now he had Justin, and Justin didn’t even need to speak for Brian to hear his faith in him, an understanding that allowed Brian to be human, to make mistakes. Well, if he made this mistake, he might as well go look at it. Fine, so be it. “Fine, I’ll be back.” He kissed Justin briefly, and walked toward the coffin. 

Justin sat back down.

“I think the red dress just stopped being the scandal,” Liam said, nodding Justin’s attention to the little ladies across the room who were staring at him, then turning shocked faces to Brian’s back as he walked toward the corpse of his mother. 

***

Brian looked down at Joan’s face, its stillness, its ungodly whiteness. Shit. She really should be in blue. He knelt down on the pillow placed for just that purpose, rested his arms on the side of the coffin. 

“Hey,” he said softly. “Hey, Mom.” He stopped, feeling stupid. Was he supposed to say something now that he hadn’t, that he couldn’t have said when she was alive? Was he supposed to profess a love, a sorrow he just didn’t feel? What the hell. He’d say what he did feel, then. “You really failed me. You failed yourself. I think you knew, though. Didn’t you? You kept turning into religion instead of outward to the people who you claimed to love. I don’t think you knew what love is. That really fucked me up, did you know? did you care? You know, though, somehow, in spite of all that, I seem to be doing okay. How’d that happen? I’ve been lucky enough to find people who actually manage to keep me from hurting myself too badly. Or, they found me. Fuck if I know. I just know I’m really lucky. I’m also really glad you’re dead Mom. You and Dad. I’m hoping I can let all this shit go, now that I don’t have you around to remind me of how big a failure I am, a failure of the expectations from someone who didn’t love me. Now all I have are the expectations of people who do love me, and I still fuck up, but they love me anyway. I’m a human being to them. They think I can fuck up. That I don’t need to be punished. They think I’m human. Was that it, Mom? Did you not know what it meant to be human? You know something, I’m learning that. Just now, I’m learning that. I’ve been unbelievably lucky. I sure as hell never learned what that means from you. But you never let me. But maybe you never knew. That’s pretty fucking sad. And I’m glad you’re dead. We’re both out of your misery.” Well. Once the mouth opened, the confession poured out. That went well, he thought. He stood, and turned around, noting that the room was less populated. He glanced at his watch. 8:15. Well, maybe this would be over sooner rather than later. 

He walked back to Justin. “Did we clear out the room?” 

Justin shrugged. “Do you care?”

“Where’d Liam go?”

“He went to talk to the funeral director’s wife.”

“That little crow flitting around?”

Liam returned. “Boys, I have found the wellspring of life, and it is in Mr. Leslie’s office.” He held forth a pint of tequila. “Anyone care to join me in the men’s room?”

Justin burst out laughing, as Brian shook his head. Liam looked confused at their amusement. “Liam,” Justin said, “If Uncle Mike were listening to you, I have a feeling he would know exactly why that was so funny.”

“Makes you wonder about Uncle Mike, doesn’t it Sunshine?” They all turned to make their way toward the men’s room for a break and a shot. Or two. “Are you adopting my family now? Uncle Mike?”

“Mother Taylor?” Justin responded, receiving a sour look in return. He smiled, and Brian took his hand and pulled him along. At least Brian wasn’t asking for a blow job on the coffin. He grimaced, feeling ashamed at the thought, knowing he should have more faith in Brian’s judgment and character; by now, he should know that Brian toed the line, he never really went over it. And that Freudian nightmare was definitely over the line, and that was coming up nowhere but Justin’s own imagination. Feeling guilty, he squeezed Brian’s hand, receiving in return a grip that tightened its hold on him. 

***

“You know, I’m not quite sure how I ended up here,” Liam commented, shouting at Emmett over the driving beat at Babylon. 

“It’s called tequila! Let me get you another margarita,” Emmett answered. He turned to the bar. “You look very nice, by the way.”

“That’s SOMEBODY’S fault!” Liam leaned across Emmett’s space, and yelled at Brian. “If you had let me go back to the hotel, I could look like you.” 

“You could only dream of looking like me,” Brian answered, grabbing at Justin’s elbow to stop its jab into his side. “You insisted we get to the drinks, ‘fuck the hotel!’ Let’s get drunk!’ I seem to recall someone insisting.” 

“Well, if I can’t have a body like that,” Liam gestured toward a man walking past, wrinkling his brow at the insanely defined pecs revealed by the see-through shirt, and the well-toned buttocks framed by cutaway leather pants. “I might as well look elegant, while you look like you came in from the loading dock.”

“Yeah, load me up,” Justin breathed, running his hand down Brian’s white tank, under the hem, palm flat against the skin on his abdomen. Justin had insisted they at least stop by the loft before moving on to Woody’s, by whining about smoke getting into his cashmere. No one had pointed out he could just leave the sweater in the car. Really, he’d wanted Brian in comfortable clothes, relaxed, putting that wake behind him, forgetting the day they faced tomorrow. Brian needed some down time. At Woody’s they’d met Emmett, gotten a little sloshed, and somewhere around midnight, Liam was dragged along (well, insisting on being dragged along) to Babylon.

“I got the delivery for you,” Brian returned, nipping at Justin’s ear. “Later. Dance, now?”

Justin nodded, and they headed to the floor. The crowd parted before them, and they took up in the center of the space, rubbing up against each other, Justin sliding his groin up against Brian’s thigh, Brian’s hands moving down Justin’s backside, as they lost themselves to everything else. 

Liam turned to face the bar, and Emmett turned around, joining him. “Too much information, honey?”

“Yeah, you could say that. I mean, Brian. Just getting used to the idea.”

Emmett eyed him over his drink. “You seem to be immersing yourself in it fairly well. But you’d better stay out of the back room, if it’s getting a bit much.”

“Back room? What’s that?”

“Room for fucking. See where those guys are going?” Emmett nodded toward the blue-lit corridor that lay toward the back of the club, beyond the bar. 

But Liam’s eye was caught by something else on its way to what Emmett indicated. “Hey, Emmett, tell me something, that’s not a guy, is it?” He nodded down the bar, to a female type who was watching Liam from the other end. 

Emmett stared, his eyes narrowing, then eyebrows shooting up. “Oh my god! A real live girl! And it’s not even dyke night!” 

“Hm. Okay, I’m going to go do some investigating.” 

Emmett stared at Liam’s back as he walked away. “Great,” he sighed to no one in particular. “That figures.”  
***

Brian finally dragged Justin off the dance floor for another drink. He already felt the tension easing from his shoulders, under the skillful touch of his lithe partner’s hands and body. Time to consider other activities. 

“Hey,” he turned to Emmett after ordering two beers. “Where’d Liam go?”

“Your cousin found the only woman in the place.”

“A woman? Here?” Justin asked, taking the beer from Brian.

“Heterosexual woman, no less. I think. He was on the dance floor for a while… your cousin can’t dance either.” Emmett eyed Brian, who rolled his eyes.

“Heterosexuals,” Brian answered. “Put two in a room, they’ll find each other and fuck. No discrimination.” He took a swig of beer. 

“You think they’re fucking?” Emmett returned. “How is that possible? He’s here two seconds, finds a real woman in a gay men’s club…” 

Brian smirked. “He’s related to me, you expect anything less?”

“Kinney!” The holler came from down the bar, as Nick Simons pushed his way through the crowd. Brian eyed him; he’d gotten a blow job from the guy when he’d first shown up on the scene, would have liked to do more, but Simons made clear, he was a top, and only wanted a piece of the legend before he established his own buzz. Twenty-five years old, and already making a reputation for himself. “I’m given to understand that PERSON came in with you?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Simons?” 

“Hey, Justin.” A twink named Kirk, appearing in Simons’s wake, greeted Justin. 

“Hey,” Justin returned, and turned back to the scene playing out in front of him. Brian’s back had straightened; Justin loved it when he got all butch. 

“A guy, about your size, about 25 pounds on you, dressed in a navy suit with a cranberry tie, fucking a woman, FUCKING A WOMAN!!! in the backroom! Did THAT come in here with you?!” 

Justin turned to Kirk, who shrugged and nodded.

“Of course, he didn’t cum with me, Simons, he’s apparently cumming with that woman. But yes, actually. He’s my cousin.” 

Kirk turned to the men who had followed behind Simons, and telegraphed this news back. “He’s Kinney’s cousin… Of COURSE he’s related to Kinney…” Murmurs echoed back, and Justin smothered a laugh. Hardly the time to show his amusement. Nick and Brian were all but pawing the ground between them. Next thing you know, Justin thought, they’ll lower heads and rush at each other. Kirk tried to interrupt, plucking at Simons’s elbow. “Hey, Nick, ya know, I know a good corner of the alley in back…” Nick shook him off. 

At last, Brian just shrugged, dismissing the other man. “Look, Simons, you only need to do what I do when I see something fairly distasteful, such as when I see you going at it. I just look away. Even heterosexuals need to get their rocks off. What, is she your sister?” 

“Nick…” Kirk pleaded. Nick looked down at him, and the twink trailed a hand down Nick’s half-zipped jeans. Nick’s face softened slightly, and he said, “Just a sec.” He then turned back to Brian. “Your cousin’s from out of town?”

“New York.” 

“Let him fuck up Chelsea, send him out of my territory, back home where he belongs.” 

“I think we know whose territory this is…” Brian returned, nodding toward the entrance to the back room, where the few men who had followed Nick out were going back to start playing again. “Didn’t you get the verdict? He’s a Kinney, he gets a free pass through my magical kingdom.”

“Nick…” Kirk begged, sounding literally in pain.

“Fine, if you just can’t wait,” Nick snapped, grabbing Kirk’s hand and pulling him in the other direction, across the dance floor toward the back exit. Kirk twisted his head around to catch Justin’s eye, and winked, before scampering to keep up with the other man’s long-legged stride.

Emmett leaned toward Justin. “What, you running a workshop, tips on how to snag a big bad top?” 

Justin glanced over at Brian, who was leaning against the bar and scanning the room. “Kirk’s on his own with the big bad top, Emmett. My man’s sweet.” 

Brian turned and smiled, a rare, real smile, before leaning in and kissing his lover. Emmett sighed.


	8. Chapter XIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The funeral. Afterwards, Brian, Michael and Justin go through Brian's childhood things. Justin discovers a horrible secret concerning a member of Brian's family.

He floated into a hazy half-aware dream, warm, safe, just drifting… oh, ohh, yesss… the feel of lips and tongue right there… drifting closer to awareness from out of the surrounding thickness of sleep, dark lightening slowly to brightness, the sensation of bodily presence washing over him, and now with that caressing touch against his skin, still encased in sleep’s heavy warmth and comfort, and gently coaxed upward by the added, pleasant, more than pleasant sensations washing over him, lifting him out of the pool of unconsciousness, surfacing, and then… cumming, his entire being focused on the gathering intensification, and the tightening, tightening… and being washed outward on slow but intense throbs, nerve signals coursing to the tips of his fingers and toes, tingling. He emerged into full consciousness with such little disruption between his sleeping and waking state that he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just still dreaming. His hands moved down, to entwine in Justin’s hair. Silky. Fingertips skimming the skull beneath the softness sliding through his fingers. Felt real. Brian opened his eyes, took in the blue gazing back at him, the cocky grin that greeted him. “Good morning,” Justin whispered, moving up Brian’s body, to kiss his jawline, his lips.

When they parted, Brian moved his head back and raised an eyebrow. He asked, his voice still husky with the remnants of sleep, “What was that for?”

“Setting the tone for the day,” Justin answered, sitting up.

Oh, yeah. The funeral. 

“What time is it?”

“Time to get up.”

Brian put his forearm over his eyes, knowing Justin was right, but denying any immediate response. Get up. He had been up. Now he was definitely back down. He peered out from underneath his arm, watching Justin’s naked backside move toward the bathroom. 

“Come on, Brian. We gotta be at the church in two hours.” 

Ugh. That place. Brian smirked, remembering.

“And I’m not gonna be able to picture anything but you and that altar, it just isn’t right…” Justin’s voice came to him from the bathroom. The shower was turned on.

Brian sat up, smiling despite a gathering dread in the pit of his stomach that Justin’s wake-up call had dissipated somewhat. That was pretty funny, Justin was still freaked out. Wonder if he’d be bringing that up years down the road? Probably. Brian chuckled slightly, even as he wondered how Justin did that, read his mind, then say just the right thing to get him into or out of the moods that ran through him. Well, he wasn’t going to think about it now, not when there was a cascade of nice hot water calling to him, to say nothing of the nice hot body it was pouring over…

***  
He sat in the corner of the limo, staring out the window, waiting for Claire, who was shaking the hands of a couple of old women at the doorway to the church. Thank god that was over. How long had that fat priest rattled on, how many of Claire’s ridiculous sobs had he counted? He’d stopped at sixty-something. One a minute. Was she timing them? Wouldn’t surprise him. 

Justin reached out, took the hand which had been lying on the seat between them, picked it up and squeezed it. He then released his grip, but Brian found himself tightening his own hold, and resting their clasp on Justin’s leg. “How’s it going?” Brian asked. 

“That should be my question to you.”

“Ah, beat you to it.”

“Doesn’t get you out of being asked.”

“Well, damn.”

There was a silence, and Brian watched Claire detained by an old man. Wait, it was Uncle Mike. Wow, he was looking his age. And Christ, would that woman never get down here so they could get this show on the road?

“Brian.”

Brian didn’t look over, but knew Justin waited for an answer to his implied “how you holding up?” He shook his head, not in refusal, but out of uncertainty as to how to answer. Finally, he managed, “I just keep remembering Vic’s funeral. I felt… sad. Like I knew how much I’d miss him. All this is, is relief.” He could feel the features of his face harden as he said this, and realized he felt a kind of sadness in the fact that this was so. How fucked up was this? When would it be over? 

Justin leaned into him, and brought his free hand to Brian’s jaw line, turning his head away from the scene outside of the car. “You can feel that way, you know. It’s perfectly fine.”

Brian shrugged. “I know. But… still.” But still, he leaned his face toward Justin’s caress, as the young man’s thumb slowly traced a pattern on the skin just beneath his cheek. 

“Love is only given without thought by children, after that, it’s gotta be earned. It’s not wrong to feel nothing for people who don’t deserve it.”

“You should take your own advice.”

“I do,” Justin replied with a slight smile, and leaned forward to kiss him. Brian allowed himself the brief comfort of his partner’s soft lips, but broke away just as the comfort began to yield to something else. Brian smiled slightly. “Don’t you think it would be inappropriate to seduce me in the limousine in the middle of my mother’s funeral?”

The blue eyes sparked with wrath at the words, at the teasing tone, and Justin drew in his breath, no doubt, Brian knew, to lecture him on appropriate behavior in the shadow of this very church, yup, still freaked out, but just then the door opened, and Claire moved in, John and Peter preceding her. Peter shoved John across the seat, but John just moved over, staring out the window toward the street, ignoring the vehicle’s other occupants, lost in his own world. 

“You timed that,” Justin grumbled.

“How could I? I was looking at you,” Brian returned, and turned his attention to his sister, who was wiping the tears from her cheeks and straightening the veil on her hat. 

“Poor Uncle Mike. He really misses her.”

“Same as you, huh?”

He received a glare for that from his sister, and another squeeze of his hand from Justin. He paid attention to only one of the two. 

***

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…” Father Tom’s voice droned on. The bright sunlight made Brian glad he had an excuse to wear his sunglasses so he could eye the battle lines drawn across the gravesite without anyone knowing that he had even taken note of them. On this side, Brian and his cohorts, his lover, his cousin, his best friend and the best friend’s mother, the mother of his own child, and then Emmett and Ted. On that side, Claire, looking oddly right in place among the aging crowd of his mother’s cronies, Peter and John standing next to her. Peter looked bored, fidgeting, and John just looked spaced out, his face pale as he stared at the casket. Brian was amazed that he was actually paying attention, that this meant something to him. Well, what the fuck did he know about the little shit? Not a lot, and he planned to keep it that way. And, of course, Uncle Mike, standing on Claire’s other side, gripping her arm. Claire had her hat’s veil drawn down over her eyes. He could imagine them gleaming behind its shadow. 

He glanced over at Justin, who was squinting up at the fat priest behind Tom. Definitely needed to get him sunglasses, maybe what? Ralph Lauren? Versace? Nah, since Gianni’s death, the line had gone to shit, even the accessories…

“Hey, Brian, how you holding up there?” Mikey’s voice, all concern, and Brian realized the service was over. Over, over. Thank god. Only Claire’s little post-service gathering at Mom’s house to get through. Well, not even that, he had the perfect excuse of going through his stuff, so he’d be able to duck out for the upstairs as soon as he’d had one cup of coffee and twenty or so “thanks for coming, yes, it’s sad, thank you, thank you…” Claire’s thank-you’s. He’d probably just keep his mouth shut. Then back to the loft. He had plans that involved making his eyes all big and troubled, and gaining the sympathy of a certain blonde ex-twink. Not that he was that calculated. He did feel, well, off. And he did need distraction, damn it. Sure, he could just tell Justin to drop trou and bend over, but there was some sort of extra… shit, he didn’t know, some extra something in that morning’s blow job, the caress on his jaw in the limo; he wanted a replay. Besides, Justin didn’t necessarily ask how high to his commands to jump anymore. And what, was he supposed to tell Justin, no rough stuff tonight, honey, I want your gentle touch… He shuddered, just thinking of those words coming out of his mouth. Uh-huh, no. Ain’t gonna happen. The bambi-eyed thing would work just as well. Besides, Justin would think he was kidding if he actually said something like that. Not that he ever would. And he didn’t need to make excuses for himself, did he? Shit, no. He was Brian fucking Kinney. Bambi eyes, here we come.

“What?” he asked, realizing Michael was waiting for him to say something, and Deb hovering just behind him, concerned looks plastered on their faces. 

“I asked how you were doing.”

“Fine,” Brian replied, shortly. 

“Justin told me you were hoping for help in sorting out your stuff?” Despite himself, Michael couldn’t help but light up at the mere consideration of going through Brian’s old crap. He tried to maintain that sympathetic look, but he just couldn’t do it. 

“Yup,” Brian replied. “We get to see what goes on the bonfire.” They began walking away from the gravesite, as the others trailed in their wake. 

“Brian! Hey, if you’re just going to burn it, I get to keep some of it, then, don’t I?”

“All that old high school shit? Why would you want to?”

“High school was great!” Michael replied. “Well, it was for me. I know you didn’t have fun.” 

Brian flung an arm around Michael’s shoulders. “That had nothing to do with you. But I think Justin wants some of that shit kept around in case Gus wants memorabilia of his old man.”

“Oh. Right. Of course.” Michael grimaced at himself. Why didn’t he ever think of those things? He glanced over his shoulder, to where Justin and Deb were trailing behind them, deep in conversation. Justin looked up, flashed Michael a smile, which Michael couldn’t help returning. He was good for Brian, that was for sure. And that was the only important thing, right? Right.

“But,” Brian was continuing, dropping his arm as they reached the cars, “I suppose we might be able to let you have something.”

Michael smiled, shook his head. “Nah, I don’t need any of your stuff.”

“You sure?”

Michael nodded. “Yeah, I got the memories. Justin should have access to the pictures and stuff, since he wasn’t there. And Gus, when he grows up. But it’ll be fun to go look at, anyway.” 

That got a smile from Brian. He leaned in and surprised Michael by kissing him on the cheek. “You really are a good friend, you know that?”

Michael frowned up at him. “Has grief addled your brain?”

Smack! Shit! “Ma!” Michael cried, rubbing the back of his head. He turned to Deb. She shook a finger at him. 

“Have some respect, Michael.”

He rolled his eyes. 

“It’s okay, Deb,” Brian answered. He nodded at Lindsay as she passed him and smiled. “Are you coming to Claire’s little thing?”

Lindsay shook her head, wrinkling her nose. “No, I really do need to get back to my wife and kids. Mel’s still not feeling up to par. And your son is a real handful.” She headed off to her car. 

Deb patted Brian on the hand. “I gotta go work, myself, honey. But come by later, okay? Before you go out?”

Brian nodded, and felt Justin’s hand at his back. “Ready?” He nodded in reply. 

***

“This is your old room?” Justin asked curiously, looking around. The walls were yellow, with a border of vine-work applique traced just beneath the ceiling; a white eyelet coverlet lay over the bed with a yellow blanket at its foot, the lamps white with white lace shades, prints of pussy willows, lilies, white roses, one print on each wall. He looked at Brian, and raised an eyebrow. Brian rolled his eyes, and took off his jacket, tossing it over Justin’s head, his tie falling in his lap. Justin smirked as he pulled the jacket off and placed it behind him on the bed, throwing the tie over it. 

Michael answered for Brian, who moved to the window and lifted the shade, letting the sunlight in. “Well, it used to look a lot different. Blue.” 

“I came back from college to find my room converted into a guest room. All yellow,” Brian spat, ignoring the décor and heading for the closet. He slid open the door, and pushed aside some random shirts. “Damn, they should have put in a light…” Justin heard him say as he disappeared into the part of the closet that stretched off behind the wall. “Shit, damn it…” He backed up, carrying a box. “Here’s one. Probably old high school stuff. Claire said there’s also a couple of boxes up in the attic, that’s probably the baby books, elementary crap. Who knows.” He set the box on the floor, and squatted down, ripping the duct tape off. On the side, block letters read, “BRIAN.”

And then the oddest look crossed over his face. He stared for a moment, and then reached into the box. He pulled out a very strange stuffed animal. It was a… dog? Horse? Definitely not a teddy bear. Violent purple. With black ears. Only one eye, a black shiny button hanging by a thread. Most of the, uh, fur, was worn down; the thing looked moth eaten. Justin wrinkled his brow, looking at it. 

“Oh my God!” Michael cracked up. “Booboo!” 

“Booboo?” Justin smirked, eyeing the ratty thing.

Brian looked up, a small smile on his face. “Don’t make fun of Booboo, he’s older than you are. I got him when I was four.” He held the thing in his hands, staring down at that dangling eye. 

“So it’s, what? 30?”

“Twenty-nine!” Brian insisted. “That thing was my only friend for years.” He glanced over at Michael. “Until I got a real one. Then Booboo…”

“Slept with you at night,” Michael supplied.

“Hung out on the window seat,” Brian corrected, scowling. He stood, and put Booboo down on said window seat, before moving back to the box. 

Justin eyed the stuffed animal. “I can’t believe your taste was so… bad.” 

“Actually, Claire picked him out,” Brian answered.

“Really? Claire did something nice for you?”

He shrugged. “She was seven. I was in the hospital. Concussion.” That last was muffled as Brian turned back to the box. Justin took a breath, ready to ask, but Michael caught his eye, and grimly shook his head. 

“Here, Michael,” Brian said, handing him a high school year book. “Get it over with.” He leaned back, and watched as Michael grinned, and sat on the bed next to Justin, opening the year book to pages he already knew, having an identical copy at home. “Here, that’s me,” he told Justin, pointing to a picture of a goofily smiling man with hair a bit too long. Next to his picture was written, in big, loopy writing, “Hey asshole, I’m not going to write anything since you aren’t getting rid of me just by graduating!! Yr best friend, you know who!” 

“Original,” Justin observed, looking up at Michael, who punched him in the arm, and flipped back a few pages, to Brian’s picture. 

“You wouldn’t believe how hard the photographer tried to get him to smile,” Michael said.

“I didn’t do that.” Brian put in his comments, pausing to watch Justin’s reactions.

“Too cool for school?” Justin glanced up only briefly before turning his gaze back to the young man, unbelievably thinner than Brian was now, but with those high cheekbones, the lush lips, the “fuck you” expression. 

“Something like that.” 

“Here,” Michael said, flipping through yet again, to the sports section. Justin would have liked to have looked a little more closely, but he knew he had time, later. He glanced over at Brian, who grimaced, but didn’t look too terribly upset by all this. “There,” Michael directed Justin’s attention to the page. 

Wow. On the soccer page was a black and white shot of Brian in his uniform, taken from the side as he moved into a kick as an opponent approached; arms out to the sides balancing for the kick, the leg all muscle, the focus of his gaze upon the ball all-consuming. Then Michael was pointing to a smaller, color shot in the next page of Brian again, ball in hand, the other hand on his hip, relaxing on the sidelines, a beautiful, beautiful boy. “I think the photographer was in love with him.”

“Everybody was,” Brian said, and Justin and Michael both made gagging noises, Michael shutting the book, placing it in Justin’s lap. “Anything else interesting?” Michael asked. 

“Varsity letters, some old pictures… a couple notebooks, those can probably go. Hey…” Brian stood up with a couple of comics in his hand. “Here.” He handed them to Michael. 

“Oh my god! Robot Man and Infinity Zone!” Michael looked at them, turned them over, shook his head at the flakes of paper that fell away. “Too bad these weren’t put in plastic, they’d probably be worth something. What do you think happened to the rest of your collection?” 

“Might be up in the boxes in the attic,” Brian answered.

“Oh?” Michael’s voice was so hopeful.

“You want to go check that out? I’ll be up in a sec.” 

“Okay, if that’s what you want,” Michael answered, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice. He moved out of the room. 

Justin opened the yearbook as Brian dug back into the box., He opened the yearbook back up to the soccer page and gazed down at the picture of the kid in the number 11 jersey, holding the soccer ball, glancing sideways into the camera with that arrogant sneer that had apparently attracted the photographer’s eye for good-looking, smart, athletic, and untouchable. Brian had had the formula down, even back then. But Justin knew, that was also the start of that veneer he wore as he wore Armani now, a hard cover over the child who had learned that softness was deadly, and love didn’t exist, and to exist without pain in the world you had to give up everything you really wanted, close yourself off. To not know joy, to only know pain, a pain that made you want to burn through the world, desecrate the altars of life, take everything it had to offer to try to and fill that hole inside that could only be satisfied by the one thing you sensed existed, had heard existed, but never experienced for yourself. Justin felt a prickle at the back of his eyeballs, a tightness clamping around his temples. A single drop fell onto the laminated page, and he wiped it idly away, passing his hand over teenage Brian’s picture. 

Damn it, he thought as he felt the mattress dip underneath Brian’s weight. He didn’t want Brian seeing him this upset for the kid his lover had once been. But his chin was caught by Brian’s hand, his head raised. Brian took the book from Justin’s lap with his other hand, and set it aside. Justin took a deep breath and blinked, willing the tears away. “You were so young,” he tried to explain. “You seem so… hard already. Angry. You were what. Seventeen?” 

“I had to be,” Brian started, hesitated, seeming to search for the words. “For my mom, love was something you dole out so people gave you what you wanted back. All that shit I was doing, the grades, the soccer, it was to get out of their house but…” He hesitated.

“What?”

“I was hoping if I was really good, then they’d love me. But they just thought they weren’t doing anything wrong, because I was making them look good. They got what they wanted. And I got shit. Nothing I did was ever good enough. Joan told me all the time, there was something wrong with me. I was unfeeling, cold. Unnatural.” He snorted. “Bet she loved it when she found out I was gay. She had been right, all along, as far as she was concerned. She hadn’t done anything wrong, it was all me.”

“You’re not cold, Brian. There’s nothing wrong with you. And you’re even more gorgeous than you were then,” Justin flattered, glancing down at the picture and back up to the present-day Brian, who was rolling his eyes, but looking pleased. “Like when you’re with Gus. And I know you were an asshole to me in the beginning, but that first night… you let me in. You did. Even then, I knew that attitude was covering something else. Why do you think I stuck around? You let me see you. And that’s coming out more. Maybe that’s why you had to build up angry-boy, because you really did know what love is. Your mom never did. You do things for me that show me you love me all the time. You’re not unfeeling, and you’re not cold.”

Brian hesitated, and leaned his forehead to rest on the other man’s. “Yeah. Shut up. Okay, listen. I want to say this.” He straightened again. “When I do things for you… it’s because, well, I want things for you, not for myself. I know you feel that way about me, I just didn’t know that’s what you meant when you blathered on about your ‘feelings’.” Justin swatted him, and Brian leaned back. “Look, Justin, if I could, I would just say the stupid words. But for better or worse, all of this is who I am,” he nodded around the room, at the high school yearbook. “If I say it, I want it to be as right as the feeling is. And it is.”

“I know,” Justin replied. “I love you too, Brian.” Brian smiled, and leaned forward, but Justin pulled back. “Can I ask you something? If it’s out of line, just forget it.”

“So?”

“If it’s not natural to you, how come you can say you love Michael?” 

Brian froze, then abruptly straightened as if bitten. 

Justin wished he hadn’t asked; he had known the question was a mistake. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask you that.”

“No, I’m just…” Brian stared at him, hard. The silence stretched out.

“Seriously, Brian, forget it, I shouldn’t question your relationship with Michael, it’s not my place.”

“Fuck worrying about your place. You know you should just ask me if something’s bothering you.” Brian took a deep breath. “Look, what I’m going to tell you… I don’t want it to go beyond this. Michael wouldn’t understand. And I’m not proud of this.” 

Justin nodded. Usually, if Brian didn’t want something repeated, he would keep it to himself. And he knew he didn’t have to tell Justin not to take out public announcements on their private conversations.

Brian stared hard at him, then said, “I told Michael I loved him the first time he let me retreat to his house. I think I said something like, I love you guys, to both him and Deb. It didn’t really mean anything. Glib bullshit. Learned the game from Joan. But he gave me this look… No one had ever been that happy at something I’d said, ever. I was, what? hooked maybe. And I didn’t say it so much after that, as agree with him when he said he loved me.” Brian hesitated, then continued. “Once, right around that whole Stockwell mess, Michael accused me of wanting to take off to New York without a backward glance, and I told him that no matter what, I’d always love him. He just said ‘bullshit,’ and I almost laughed, I was so pleased he was finally clueing into my crap.” 

“But you do love Michael,” Justin insisted softly. 

Brian returned, equally insistent, “It’s different. I love him, but I don’t ever give back as much as I get.” He saw Justin’s look, twisted his lips, and continued, “Anyway. I want those words to let you know what I feel *for* you, not what I get *from* you. With Michael and you, it’s different. How I love him, it’s not how I love you.”

Silence. 

Then, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, saying it wouldn’t sound right. That sounded okay to me.” 

“Only because you were challenging me,” Brian answered, slightly disconcerted at how easily the words had slipped out. 

Justin chuckled. “So you can only tell me you love me when we’re arguing. That sure sounds about right for you.” 

Brian just stared at him, making Justin laugh harder. “Oh, my god, you’re totally freaked out, aren’t you? If it makes you feel any better, I’ve known all along.”

“Twat.” But Brian relaxed, and let Justin lean into him. “So that sounded okay? Only okay?”

“Well… I don’t want to panic you by using words like ‘amazing’ or ‘heart-stopping.’ You look like a deer caught in the headlights as it is.”

“A deer? You’re comparing me to a deer?”

“Yes, my dear,” Justin replied, laughing as Brian groaned. “It sounded more than okay, and you know it. Is your ego stroked adequately?”

“It’s not the ego that wants stroking…” 

But Justin only stood, and moved to the window, much to Brian’s displeasure. “Later. Besides, Booboo needs a lot more stroking than you do, after what, 20 years in a box?”

“Fine… I’m going to check on my best friend, make sure he doesn’t end up drooling on my old comics.”

“You’re going to give them to him anyway,” Justin returned.

“Probably. There’s one more box in the closet, by the way. If you feel the urge to pry more into my past…” With a slight smile, Brian left the room. 

Justin’s hand came off the stuffed animal, and he moved across the room. Hm, what else could be hiding in the back of this closet? Considering the possibilities, he walked in and shoved aside the shirts, barely able to make out the small box that huddled against the far wall. “Shit!” he said, tripping over a pair of old boots on the floor, catching himself on the wall.

And heard voices behind him in the room, the sound of the door closing. He froze, as he recognized the fat priest’s voice. 

“John, you need to calm down.”

“I am calm! I’m fine! But… but…” John seemed about to cry.

I really should say that I’m here, Justin thought, but before he could speak, Father Steven’s next words changed his mind.

“She’s dead, isn’t that enough for you? Your hysteria isn’t going to change that, it’s only going to make it worse. Worse for you.”

“But it’s my fault! She saw… she saw…” 

“And look what happened. What do you think is going to happen if you open your mouth about this? Who are you going to tell?”

Justin heard the door open as he sat, frozen, in the back of the closet.

“Father Steven? What are you doing?” Father Tom’s voice.

“Nothing, Tom. John was upset, we were just having a little talk.”

“John, your grief is understandable, but death is beyond all of our control. You do remember what I told you?”

“Yes, Father Tom, I remember.” John’s voice, sounding drained of its usual belligerence. Mechanical. The small hairs on the back of Justin’s neck prickled. 

“Why don’t you go share your sorrow with your mother? She is equally distraught.” 

The door opened and closed again, and Tom’s voice turned from its soothing tone to something much harsher. “What are you thinking?”

“He was getting hysterical. I was just reminding him of how much trouble his speaking up would cause.”

“Tell me you weren’t threatening him.”

“Of course not! I was merely reminding him…” 

“Do me a favor and shut up. Take your own advice. Be grateful all I’m doing is moving you out of the parish.”

“You know I am grateful for your charity.”

“You need help, Steven, the Lord will punish you as he sees fit. It’s bad enough that we’ve had to go against Joan’s will, bad for the parish. The house could have done a great deal of good. So don’t forget how lucky we are that that boy’s mother is as interested in avoiding a scandal as we are, and keep your mouth shut. Don’t let me see you alone with that boy again, ever! One more week, is that too much to ask?” 

Father Steven replied, “Of course not…” 

And the door’s click as it opened was heard, and the priests’ voices faded. Justin waited a minute or so before peering out into the now-empty room. He walked over to Booboo, picked up the little animal and unthinkingly hugged it to his chest. “Holy shit,” he whispered, and then laughed slightly but with no humor at the appropriateness of that phrase. He repeated it, “Holy fucking shit.” What the fuck were they going to do? This was… Holy shit.

He put Booboo down and left the room, intent on finding the attic and Brian, but before he reached the stairs at the end of the hall, he heard broken sobs coming from a room on the left. He pushed the door open, to see John sprawled across the bed. “John?” He alerted the kid to his presence before approaching.

John snapped to attention, springing out of his fetal position, upright. “What… what the fuck do you want?”

Justin remained standing a few feet away. “I heard what Father Steven said to you,” he said, coming straight to the point. 

“It’s nothing! It was nothing, nothing happened.”

“John…” 

“No! Nothing happened, nothing…” And then John’s face crumpled, and he turned his back, hugging his knees to his chest, and burying his face down, curled up in a ball, hyperventilating. Justin moved to sit on the bed, and reached out to touch his shoulder.

John uncurled, springing back to the headboard, as if shot. “Don’t fucking touch me!” 

“Did your grandmother know?” 

“Why do you think she’s dead!” John was moving into pure hysteria, tears streaming down his face, his breath catching somewhere in his chest and not expelling. His face was red, twisted out of shape.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Brian came into the room, having heard Justin’s voice. He had been on his way to his old room, to find out how Justin was doing with the rest of his stuff. 

“All of you, you’re all… All of you! All of you!” John yelled, pushing past Justin, then Brian, who stumbled back against the doorframe with the force of John’s egress. They heard his noisy progress down the stairs. Then Brian looked back at Justin. “What the fuck was that about?”

Justin took a deep breath.


	9. Chapter IX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian deals with the fallout of what Justin tells him.

Brian stared at Justin for a long moment, and then his eyes closed. Justin realized he wasn’t clenching his jaw, no vein throbbed at his temple, he was just utterly, utterly still. 

“Brian?” Justin whispered, afraid to touch him, fearing to set off an explosion. He couldn’t predict this one; Brian’s reactions tended to be icy, but erupting beneath until all hell broke loose. 

Brian’s hand came up, though, to rub across his cheek, and over his eyes, and then his head was falling into his hand, his other arm moving to hug himself at the waist. He simply slumped into himself. Justin’s initial alarm underwent a quick and unexpected turn; he reached out, scooting across the bed to sit, thigh to thigh, his hand resting against Brian’s upper arm, but still not ready for the weight when Brian suddenly turned into him, burying his face against Justin’s chest, so Justin was looking down at the top of his head. Woah. “Brian…”

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

Justin found himself squeezed too tightly in Brian’s grip; arms had snaked around Justin’s waist and hands dug into the skin of his back. “Fuck, fuck, fuck this family. Why…” He stopped, breathed deeply.

“Brian…” Brian never asked why. He just dealt. Reacted, sometimes forcefully, oh hell, always forcefully, but he always just dealt.

Brian raised his head, and Justin drew in his breath at the bleak look. “It never ends. I can’t…” He shook his head, looked away. 

Justin got it then. He could practically feel his heart pounding as it picked up speed, and Brian’s head lowered to his shoulder. “What can I do, Brian?”

“Tell me what to do.” Very muffled against Justin’s shirt. “I can’t kill a priest. And that’s all I can think of right now. But then, your fucking voice comes into my brain, telling me, that’s not a solution.”

“That’s not a solution,” Justin murmured, hand stroking Brian’s back. 

“Fuck, where’s John?” Brian’s head came up suddenly, eyes sharpening. 

“I don’t know, he just took off.” 

Brian stared into Justin’s face, the bleakness clearing, and then gone as if it had never been. He took a deep breath. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. I think I know where he might be. I want you to go out to the car, and wait for him.” He reached into his pocket and fished out the keys. “Take John to the loft as soon as he gets there. Go rent some movies or something, keep him occupied. Don’t let anyone up, or anyone in. Nobody, not even Michael. Just pretend you’re not home.”

“You think John’ll go there? With me?” Justin took the keys, but looked at Brian skeptically.

“Yeah he will. I want him out of the way. I’m going to raise some serious hell.” He saw the look on Justin’s face. “Don’t worry, Justin. I’ll take care of it. Don’t I always?”

“Wait a second. Just a minute ago, you asked me to tell you what to do.” Justin ignored the answering look of chagrin on Brian’s face, and pressed, “You can’t always be the one to fix everything, Brian, this might be beyond that.” Another look. “That’s not what I mean, I get this is serious and we just can’t let it go. But maybe we should call in an outside authority.”

“The police?”

“Maybe we should talk to Horvath, at least.”

Brian did not dismiss this immediately, and the tension leached from his face. He leaned forward and kissed Justin’s lips softly, then pulled back. “How about we just see what’s going on first? And then maybe we’ll see if we have to call in reinforcements.”

He felt that kiss softening him to go along with Brian’s reasonable words, and knew Brian was manipulating him. So Justin held onto his worry, even as he felt himself reluctantly agreeing with Brian’s plan. “I’m concerned about you,” he repeated. “You’re in enough of an emotionally charged situation…” He saw Brian’s grimace, and caught his lover’s face in his hand, held him so Brian was forced to look back at him. “Brian, you admitted you haven’t been exactly in great emotional control this week. And now this, on top of all the other stuff. You’re at least used to carrying that other stuff around with you, this extra stuff is, well, maybe too much. I just worry…”

“I know. I know. Didn’t I just tell you, it’s your voice in my head telling me not to just go off? You think I’m going to let my sunshine give way to storm clouds? I know what that does for my sex life.”

Justin held him there for a moment, searching his eyes for something, completely ignoring the teasing tone, knowing Brian was really pushing for his way. But then Justin nodded. “Okay. Okay, you go find John, and I’ll go take him to the safe house.” 

Safe house. Brian liked that; it summed up the loft so well. He stood, took Justin’s hand and hauled him up. “Trust me.”

“It’s not you I don’t trust.” 

***

Brian exited through the kitchen door, which opened out behind the house, and walked to the bottom of the lawn. The yard sloped down, ending in a tangle of overgrown hedges that separated Joan’s property from the neighbors’. Ignoring his suit, he dropped to his knees and pressed through a slight thinning in the thick branches that grew all the way to the ground. It was harder to do that than when he was a kid, so much smaller and skinnier, but that small, protected space where four of the hedges grew so closely that the branches couldn’t grow inward, that hidden area in the midst of the hedges, it was still there. And John was sitting in the middle of it. The young man started, and looked up, his breath hitching. 

Brian stopped as soon as he saw his nephew, and balanced himself into in an awkward squat. “This was my spot when I was a kid too. When I had to get out of the house. I came in here a lot.”

“What the fuck do you want?” The kid unfolded his arms from around his knees, ready to flee, but unfortunately Brian was at the only accessible exit point. 

“Look, I’ll stay right over here, okay? I just want to talk to you.” 

John didn’t look at him, but he made no further moves to bolt, either. Brian took that as an encouraging sign. “John.”

John turned his face toward his uncle.

“Want to tell me what’s going on?”

John took a deep breath, but then his face twisted, and he just looked away again. 

“Justin told me he heard Father Steven threatening you. Is that priest hurting you?”

Nothing, the face burying in the knees.

Brian hung back, trying to figure out a way to reach John, to encourage him to open up. Not as if he had great experience with kids, and this wasn’t just any kid, this was a Kinney kid. Just great, Brian thought, like I know how to communicate with anybody anyway, to say nothing of a belligerent 13-year old, to say nothing of this particular belligerent 13-year old. He moved himself a bit closer, and reached out to touch his nephew’s shoulder. John flinched. 

“Fuck, John, you know I’m not going to touch you like that!”

“You flushed my head down a toilet!”

“You…” asked for it, Brian stopped himself from saying by biting his tongue. He thought for a moment, and then said, “Okay. Not my finest moment. But you know I never touched you in any other way.”

“But you hurt me.”

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!! He stared at the curled up boy for a moment, and realized they were getting off track. Deflection. He knew this tactic, far too well.

Well, shit, he did know this tactic, the avoidance maneuver John had just deployed, didn’t he? Who the fuck did this kid think he was playing? Time to cut through the bullshit, and if anyone could do it, that would be me, Brian told himself, before saying to John, “So fine, then, just listen. Don’t say anything. Just either nod or don’t. Okay? John, listen, okay? Are you listening?” Patience, he thought to himself, feeling his too-quick temper rise. He heard Justin’s voice in his head, and the emotion receded. 

John nodded, his head still buried against his knees. 

“Can you look at me, at least?”

John lifted his head, and Brian caught his breath, not because the face was red and swollen from crying, but because something was suspended in that face, and something else was peeking out. Pain, sure, but… the usual scowl was missing, and Brian saw just a 13-year old, bewildered kid. Not demon spawn. Just a scared, hurt kid. Had he ever looked like that? But even he hadn’t been through this. And sure as shit, no one had been there for him. This was worse than his experience, and he’d be fucked if he abandoned this boy to it. 

“Okay.” He thought for a second. “When you sent me to jail…” John looked away, but Brian reached out and touched his shoulder with the tips of his fingers again, and John looked back, not jerking away this time. “It’s okay, I just need to ask this. All you have to do is nod if what I say is true, or shake your head no if it isn’t. Okay?” John nodded, so Brian continued, “The report you gave the police was fairly detailed.” Yeah, and he hadn’t thought about how a kid would know all about blow jobs, testicles, leakage, what some sick fuck might demand from a kid, or how a kid would know about gagging from a dick being shoved down his throat. At the time, he’d just figured John had picked shit up on the internet. But he hadn’t exactly had time to do research between Brian’s… uh, chastisement, and the police report. And Brian hadn’t stopped to think of why a homophobe in training would cruise those kind of web sites, anyway. This was starting to make more sense. Awful, horrendous sense. “Did you know about that stuff because of Father Steven?”

John hesitated, but then he stared straight into his uncle’s eyes, and nodded.

Brian had to force himself to remain in a crouched position, to not just get up and go find the good father right then. 

“Does your mother know?”

Again, nod.

“Father Tom?”

Nod.

“Did your grandmother know?”

Hesitation, then the tears, and John choked, “…she didn’t… until… until…” He stopped, and swallowed, began whimpering. 

Shit, he needed Justin for this. “Okay, listen. Here’s what we’re going to do right now.” John watched him, warily. “I’m going to take care of a few things here. But right now, we need to get you away from all these people. Right now, I’m going to go back into the house. And you’re going to go back to my place with Justin, who’s waiting for you by my car. You go right down there, I’m parked in front of the house. My place is in a secure building, Justin won’t let anyone near you. Okay?” 

John frowned, and bit down on his lips. “But… but you guys…”

“John, you know I never did anything like that to you. Justin never would either. Anyone who touches children is sick. It has nothing to do with whether they’re gay or straight. Gay men don’t molest children any more than straight men do. Only sick shits do that.” He watched John struggle with this, and he added, “I’m going to help you.”

“That’s what Father Tom said.” 

So I am going to kill me two priests, Brian thought. But for now, he just said, “Well, this is me. And I’m never wrong. You’ve heard of how successful I am, right?”

John nodded again.

“That’s because I always get my way. And right now, my way is to make sure you’re safe, away from all these people. So? will you go meet Justin by the car? Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything back here for you.”

“So you believe me?” John whispered. 

“Yeah… Justin believes you. And I believe him. You can trust him, he’s a really good guy.”

“He helped you.” 

“He’s like that. He’s a good guy. Are you okay with going with him to my place?”

“But…” John stared at his uncle, the emotions crossing his face too variable to read, but fear certainly predominating. “But what’s going to happen to me?” 

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to see you hurt anymore. And I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be hurt again.”

John shook his head.

“Yeah, okay, so we’re on the same side.” John still hesitated, and Brian pushed, “Look, I know you don’t have any reason to trust me. You just have to decide whether you will or not. But those priests aren’t on your side. And your mom’s not doing a great job of being on your side either.”

“No.” John stared at Brian for a long moment, and his face set. “Okay. You got that Corvette, right?”

“Yeah. Right out front.” 

“Can I drive?” A peek of the kid again. Maybe even a glimpse of a sense of humor there. 

Brian smiled, a little sad at how young John seemed. “Maybe when you’re my age.”

“That long?” Cutting smirk. Definitely, his nephew.

***

Michael was actually reading one of the comics in the box he had discovered tucked way in the back of the attic, where Brian found him. He looked up as Brian approached, his eyes filled with an awe that bordered on worshipful. “Do you know what you have here? And they’re almost perfectly preserved in this dry attic.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s all yours.”

“No way!” Michael started to jump up, but then laid the comic carefully back in the box. Then he did spring up, and hugged his friend. He stood back, realizing Brian’s return hug was less than heartfelt. “You okay? I mean, besides...” He looked embarrassed, realizing what he had just asked. 

“I’m fine,” Brian said, “But I sent Justin home. Time to deal with family stuff, and you know how that is in the Kinneyland. Why don’t you just take that stuff and take off yourself?” Best way to get around the truth, just omit certain information. It wasn’t exactly lying. 

“Really?” Michael returned. “Do you need me to stay, help you out any way?”

Brian shook his head. He knew Michael would, and he certainly appreciated that fact. But he really did not want him involved. Shit, he didn’t want to be involved, but he had no choice. “No, I’ll be fine.”

“You sure? I mean, with Justin not around…”

Michael’s genuine concern, and his acknowledgement of Justin’s role, made Brian actually regret having to send him away, not having that sincere support to hold him up. But Michael could do no good, and this was not something he needed to add to his list of worries. Lord knew, Michael seemed to collect them, like other people collected coins, sometimes. “I’m sure. You go home to the hubby, fuck your brains out, celebrate life. Isn’t that what you do after a funeral?”

“I’m sure it’s what YOU do after a funeral,” Michael chuckled, picking up the box. “And after the wake, and after breakfast, after lunch, after work…” 

Brian hugged him briefly as he passed. “You’re a good friend, Michael.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” 

Michael stared at him for a second. “You sure you’re okay?”

Brian sighed. “I’m fine. Go. I’ll give you a call later.”

“Okay. You take care, try not to destroy your sister’s fragile psyche.”

The snort in reply to that was not the joke that Michael certainly took it as. After Michael had left, Brian paused, looking around. There were three boxes waiting for him. He’d take them back to the loft after this was over; he did not want to stay in this house one second longer than he absolutely had to. 

***

“All right, that’s it, funeral’s over, everyone out.” 

“Brian!” Claire’s shocked voice resonated through the living room, as Brian’s announcement took the old women lingering about by surprise. 

“Time for a family conference, which means everyone out, except,” he turned to the sofa, where the priests were sitting, “you two.” He glared at Steven, who looked over at Tom, who had gone still as he watched Brian. 

As Claire ushered the last of the guests to the door, apologizing and casting worried looks over at her brother, Brian walked over to the coat rack and picked up John’s coat, patting it down until he found what he was looking for. He crossed the room to Peter, who was looking out the window, bored. “Hey, Peter.” The kid looked over at him. “Here, take John’s game. Go up in your grandma’s room, there’s a tv up there. We gotta talk boring stuff down here. Okay?”

Peter looked at him suspiciously. “Where’s John?”

“He took off with a friend.” 

“That lucky shit,” Peter grumbled. “Mom said I should stay down here for now.” 

“That was then. NOW, you can go upstairs. Your mom said it’s okay, right, Claire?” he asked his sister who was slowly returning into the room, now that the last of the guests had been escorted out. Only Uncle Mike and Liam were left, lingering in the doorway. 

“Yes, Peter, you can go watch t.v.” Peter needed no second urging. He grabbed the Gameboy Brian held out to him, and raced up the stairs. 

Brian turned to Mike and Liam. “You don’t need to stick around, this is nuclear family business.”

Liam nodded, and seemed ready to leave, but Mike shook his head. “You said family business, we’re family.”

“Dad…”

“Don’t you ‘dad’ me! Forget ‘nuclear,’ we’re family. We may not get along all the time, but I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you. Grow up and get with your responsibilities, boy.” Mike sat in the hard-backed chair that had recently accommodated some old lady, and crossed his arms over his chest. Liam sighed, and leaned against the doorframe. 

Brian hesitated, glanced at his uncle and cousin. Well, fine. Fuck it. “Sit down, Claire.” Brian held John’s jacket in his hands, gripping it so hard his fingertips began to go numb. 

“Brian…”

“Sit the fuck down!” he yelled, then bit his tongue, trying to calm down. 

“Brian, do you think that’s any way to talk to your sister?” Mike asked, eyeing his nephew. 

Brian’s hackles came up, recognizing Mike playing alpha dog, as he always did, when he was as far from in charge of this. Hell, he didn’t have any idea what this was. Time to dispel Mike’s illusion of his position as all-knowing. He answered Mike’s criticism by saying, “It is when my sister allows Father Steven there to molest her son.”

That little declaration had Liam straightening right up. Mike stared at Brian blankly, then half-rose out of his chair with a roar, “WHAT?”

“Sit the fuck down, Mike,” Brian said. “You want in, fine. But I’m in charge of this particular family business. And right now, we are going to have a little talk. So sit. The fuck. Down.”

Mike sat.

“Where’s John, Brian?” Claire asked, watching him warily.

“Oh, now you’re concerned with your son’s welfare?” 

“Maybe I should…” Father Steven began to rise, making his break for it.

“You will sit down before I slowly dismember you,” Brian interrupted, curtailing the priest’s flight. If that wasn’t enough, Mike made a counter move that mirrored Steven’s, effectively blocking the priest, while Tom murmured, “Sit down, Steven.” 

Brian turned back to his sister. “John is with my partner. In other words, he’s safe. Which is something he isn’t with you.”

Claire looked down at her hands. There was a silence. Mike flexed and unflexed his hands. Finally, Liam spoke up. “Brian, want to fill us in?”

Brian stared at Father Tom as he answered, almost casually, belying the effort it took to maintain a façade of calm. “Sure, Liam. Justin was in the guest room closet pulling out some of my old shit when Steven brought John into the room and told him to keep his mouth shut, or he’d end up like Joan. Tom here came in next, and made clear that Steven was being transferred out to avoid a scandal. Doesn’t take much to figure this out, does it? But, I spoke to John about 15 minutes ago, who basically confirmed some fairly nasty details, although I didn’t want to press him too hard. For obvious reasons. I have no such compunction with these sick fucks. So, how did my mother die, Tom?”

Tom maintained Brian’s gaze. “She saw. Claire came to me after John came to her. I arranged for Steven to be transferred out.”

“Your own, child, Claire!” Mike turned to his niece, deeply shocked. 

Claire’s white, strained face dissolved, and she burst into tears. “I didn’t know what else to do! I just, I just found out, in five minutes, that my son is being molested, and my mother died running out from seeing, from seeing…” She gestured, unable to go on. “And it’s bad enough that she left everything to Father Tom in the first place, then her own church kills her! What the hell was I supposed to do, Tom tells me that the scandal would be bad for John anyway, but ending up in a hole in the wall…” 

Brian interrupted what was turning into a babble. “Wait, what? She left Tom everything? What’s that?”

Claire spun her head around, the pleading, pathetic look directed toward her brother. “Yes, that bitch! You think I hated her for no reason! She left everything to him!”

“I thought you said she had no will?”

“Oh, there was a will, there is a will, Tom has it…”

“She left everything to the church?” Why did this not surprise him?

But Tom was shaking his head. “No. Not to the church. To me.” He reached beneath his jacket to an inner pocket, and pulled out a sheaf of papers. He handed it to Brian, who did not even open the document, but eyed it. 

“Don’t you see, Brian?” Claire pleaded. “If that didn’t come out, we’d at least get something after the hell she put us through, all our lives! And what was I supposed to do, put John through the hell of a scandal? He begged me not to, he begged me to just get him away from that priest, and that was it, we’d get the house, Tom was going to get rid of Steven, and I promised John he’d never have to go to church, never again, and with the money I could get him into counseling…”

“You better be right there with him, Claire,” Mike interrupted, “to let him know why his mother was willing to sell him out and forego justice.”

“We thought it was best for John,” Tom put in, quietly, “but obviously, it was wrong. God put your young man in the closet. I was never easy with this…”

“But, Tom,” Steven finally spoke up at last, meaning to continue, but Liam told him to shut the fuck up, and he did, mouth closing with a snap.

Tom sighed, closed his eyes. “We thought it would be best for John and Claire, best for the Pittsburgh church. But I will abide whatever decision John’s family wishes. I relied on Claire as his representative. Clearly, though, if Steven is threatening John still,” he glared over at the man sitting next to him, but Steven’s head was bowed and he was saying nothing, “then clearly I made a wrong decision. And God is correcting that.”

“No, Justin corrected that,” Brian corrected the priest. “The question is, what are we going to do?” 

“Call the police!” Mike barked. “Up in Boston, they have a zero tolerance policy, the Church locks those guys up!”

“When the church leaders aren’t refusing to release personnel records, and that doesn’t stop the victims from suicide, feelings of lack of worth, depression, and shame at the onslaught of publicity. Yeah, Mike, I read the news,” Brian told him. 

“What, are we just going to let this guy go? To what, track John down and threaten him?”

“He won’t get near him,” Brian said. 

“I’ll make sure of that,” Tom added.

“Your word isn’t exactly too great right now,” Brian shot back. 

“Brian,” Mike spoke, “you know damn well if we let this guy go, we won’t see him again.”

“If we choose to call the police,” Brian answered, “They’ll be able to track him down wherever the church sends him.”

“Then you’re not following the news that closely. Boston, at least, has a zero tolerance policy. They’ll fire the guy as soon as Father Tom calls in the report, and you think he’s going to stick around?”

Brian chewed on his lower lip, and glanced over at Liam, who grimaced, and nodded in agreement with his father. “Hate to say, he’s probably right.”

Brian stared at his cousin. He thought for a moment. “Let me make a call,” he said, taking out his cell phone. 

***

They entered the loft, and heard two voices over the sound of shots and grunts, clearly from a video game. 

“You are so dead! I thought you said you were better at the X-box!” John’s voice.

Justin’s responding. “I am! I thought you’d never played this before!”

“Oh, I am the master of all gaming,” John answered, laughing. Brian shut the door, and walked over to where the two were sitting on the floor in front of his big screen, so intent on the game they did not notice him and Liam entering the room. Strewn at their feet were pizza boxes, soda cans, and four other games that hadn’t been opened yet. 

“I thought I told you movies,” he said, making both guys jump, and look over their shoulders. 

Justin shrugged, and flashed a guilt-free smile. “Always wanted one.”

“Hah! Rule 512! Never remove your eyes from the action!”

“Shit!” Justin exclaimed, turning back to the screen. 

“Uh, boys?” Brian asked, vaulting over the back of the couch, and placing his hands on Justin’s shoulders. “Ready to take a break?” 

John stared down at his controller, putting it reluctantly aside after Justin paused the game. Then John looked up at his uncle and cousin. 

Justin asked for him, aware of the young man’s discomfort. “So, what’s going on?” He hadn’t spoke with John about this, telling him as they drove back to the loft that they didn’t need to talk about it. John had shrugged, not saying much. He had been almost invisible, until Justin had asked what he’d want to do, if he wanted to see some movies, and John had asked if he had video games, since he had mentioned his skill with the X-box. Justin had had to admit that it was Daphne’s system… But maybe they should stop by the Best Buy and get a set-up? So easy to light the kid’s fire, and the next thing Justin knew he was sitting in front of the tv, wondering why he hadn’t gotten one of these things a long time ago…

Now, Brian answered his question, “We wanted to talk to you first, John. Me, your mom, your Uncle Mike and Liam, in other words, your family, all tried to figure out what was best for you. But we thought we should talk to you first.”

John looked up reluctantly, and nodded. “Am I gonna have to…” he took a deep breath. “Am I gonna have to see Father Steven again?”

“No.” Brian’s voice brooked no possibility of disagreement. “You won’t.” 

“So, what’s gonna happen?” John seemed to loosen up some, and Brian took this as a good sign.

“The options are fairly straightforward. We can press charges against the priest, and he’ll go to jail. Or we let him go, the way your mother wanted in the first place, and he leaves town, you never see him again.” 

“But then he’d be free,” John said.

“Then he’d be free, but he would never bother you again.”

“But he might bother other kids.”

“Yeah.” Brian wasn’t going to lie about that one. 

John bit his lip. “Can’t he get away now, though?” He sounded as if he almost wished the priest would, indeed, just disappear. Brian cursed to himself; maybe he should have let the priest go. Take the decision out of the kid’s hands. Christ, he was only 13!

“He’s in jail.”

“But… but!” John’s response was almost panicked. “But that means the cops know!” 

“No, John, it’s okay, he’s not there for what he did to you,” Liam jumped in, hastening to assure him.

“Is he there for killing grandma? Can I be arrested for that too?”

Justin reluctantly broke the silence that followed that question. “John, what happened to your grandmother?”

John took a deep breath, glanced at the men in the room, each in turn. “I was in the confessional with, with…”

“You don’t need to talk about it,” Brian quietly assured him.

“Okay, so, Grandma, she opened up the door, and, and… she turned and ran, and next thing I know, she’s on the floor, with blood all over…” The boy broke off.

“So she ran out and tripped?” Brian clarified.

John’s eyes were closed, but he nodded.

“That wasn’t your fault. John! Open your eyes, look at me.” Brian held his nephew’s gaze. “It was an accident. Besides, you ever think that maybe your grandmother’s death was God’s way of making sure you got taken out of that situation?”

John gaped at him. Clearly, he hadn’t thought of that. But then the mouth snapped shut, and the vague look descended again. “God wouldn’t kill anyone.” 

Justin almost laughed, but didn’t. But hell, didn’t these kids read the Old Testament? 

Then, John mumbled, “He wouldn’t, not for me.”

Brian continued, “God works in mysterious ways, right?”

“What do you know about it?”

“Lot more than you think I would. Maybe God realized that what was going on with you was fucked up. And even if people found out about what was going on, people like Father Tom and your mother, maybe God realized that even after you told your mom, and Father Tom, about what Father Steven was doing to you, maybe God knew all those people would make the wrong decisions in protecting you, so Father Steven could still at least scare you, like he did this afternoon. So maybe he had to make sure that Justin overheard Steven threatening you, and the only way Justin would be there to hear that was if he had to be at your grandmother’s funeral.” 

“Why would God have chosen those people who were supposed to protect me, if they were just going to fail?”

Shit, this kid was smart. Brian was, for the first time in his life, glad he’d had this religious crap shoved down his throat. He could answer this one. “Free will. You know that, God gives us free will, we know we’re supposed to do the right thing, right? But following that rule is a choice. So, unfortunately, all the people around you chose wrong.”

John studied him for a long moment, then nodded. He took a long breath. “Okay… so you’re saying, Father Steven’s not in jail for what he did to me? So I can still decide if I want to have him arrested for that?” 

“We want to know what you want for yourself. Fuck Steven, don’t you worry about him.”

“What’s he in jail for?” Justin asked, curious.

Brian shot him a look that told him this was not the time, but Liam answered nonetheless. “Patriot Act violation.”

“The Patriot Act?”

Liam started laughing. “It would be funny if it weren’t so appalling.”

Brian couldn’t help explaining. “It seems Horvath has reason to believe Father Steven was told something potentially related to money laundering for possible terrorist organizations in confession. Only suspected, of course. So they’re holding him for 48 hours.”

“They can do that?” 

“Horvath seems to think it’s enough. The magic words, possible ties to terrorism. And even if it doesn’t come to anything, they’re just holding him. Apparently, they don’t need any more than that. But it gives us time.”

“Time for what?” John asked.

Brian was glad to hear John speak up. The kid seemed a little more engaged. “To decide what you want to do. Look, John, what happened to you… that is just wrong. And we’re worried it’s going to mess you up. If Steven goes free, you may feel scared for years that he’d come back, and we don’t want you feeling that way. But we’re also worried that if we have him arrested, you’ll have to be in a trial. And that’ll be really hard for you too. But,” Brian continued, “everyone also knows, what happened to you is not your fault.”

“Yeah?” John asked, fiddling with the controller. “But…” 

Brian waited.

“…he was so nice to me. He took me to baseball games. My own dad… he’s kind of an asshole. I never see him. Father Steven… I mean, I liked him. So when he, he…” John paused, then continued, “I didn’t want to stop hanging out with him. So I let him.” 

“He should never, never have done that to you, John,” Liam jumped in here. John turned slightly to look over at the other end of the couch, where Liam sat. “Seriously, John, the guy’s nice to you, of course you’re going to like that. We all like it when people take interest in us. But Steven knew that you were probably lonely for a guy who could do what your dad never did for you, and he took advantage to take something that he knew damn well you’d never want. He wanted it for himself, not for you. What he did was not good for you, and he knew it, but he didn’t care. And that’s just wrong. And we’re gonna try to keep anyone else from ever doing that again.” 

“Your Uncle Mike says you can live with him in Boston, if that’s what you want to do,” Brian added. “And Father Tom knows some boarding schools in New York, they’re not church-affiliated, so no priests. But you can go away to school if you want to get away from here.”

“And I live in New York, so I’d be close by to check in on you,” Liam said. 

“Or, you can stay here.” 

John was fiddling with the controller again. “Do I have to decide now?”

Brian shook his head. “No, you have plenty of time.”

John looked over at Justin. “Do you think Father Steven should be arrested?”

Justin nodded, reluctantly. “But it would be public. And people would know.”

“But if he gets away, he could do this to other kids.”

Again, Justin nodded. 

John took a deep breath. “I want to lock him up. For a long time.”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Liam reminded him.

“I want him locked up,” John repeated, his voice beginning to sound stressed. “I want to stay with my mom, and Peter. I like my school. I just want to be normal.”

“That’s why I’m saying you don’t have to decide right away, John. If there’s a trial, you probably won’t have that normal life you want. At least, not right away.”

John really did look ready to cry then. “Why can’t he just be locked up, and I can be normal, and nobody else know?”

Shit, who said life’s fair? Brian cynically thought, but he kept that to himself, even as Justin shifted under the tightening pressure of Brian’s grip at his neck. “Why don’t you just think about it, John? And tomorrow, we’ll come up with something. We’ll see what we can come up with.” 

“Promise?” The boy’s eyes, that spark of hope through desolation.

Brian had to turn his own gaze away. “I can’t promise. I wish I could. But we’re going to try to do what’s best for you. Not for the church. Not for your mother. Not for us. For you. Okay?”

“Okay.” John stared at his uncle for a while, then at Justin, who had leaned into Brian’s legs. “Okay.”

“In the meantime,” Brian continued, more than thankful to change the subject, “You’re going to spend tonight at the hotel with Liam. That okay with you?”

“I can’t go home?”

“You’re mom’s a little upset. She wants you there, but we think it would be best if she has time to recover from the funeral, and from this afternoon. And we think it would be best if you have a place to chill out, away from your mom. She didn’t do the right thing, John.” He couldn’t wait to tell Justin Claire had used John’s molestation as a means of subverting Joan’s will and claiming the house for herself. “Unless you want to go home, and Liam can stay there with you? Or one of us?”

John snickered. “Yeah, there’s no room in that place. Besides, I think you guys want to be alone.” He eyed Justin’s position, comfortably tucked between Brian’s legs. Brian looked at his nephew sharply, but realized there was no malice in the statement. In fact, John might even be teasing him. 

“Uh…” 

“So okay, hotel. Cool. Can we get room service?” John asked Liam, who replied with a hearty, “Of course!” 

“But,” John continued, “Can we hang out here? Just for a little while? I gotta finish kicking your boyfriend’s butt.”

“I don’t think so!” Justin answered, picking up his controller, and turning back to the game, taking it off pause. 

Brian winced at the noise, and turned to Liam. “How’d you feel about a drink?”

“I think we might become kissing cousins if you were taking it out in trade.”

Brian rolled his eyes, and moved toward the whiskey, Liam right behind him.


	10. Chapter X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian finds a use for Melanie. Mother Taylor visits.

Brian closed the loft door on Liam and John, after telling them he’d call them the next day. Then he turned back, and looked across the room, where Justin had switched on the evening news, and settled back on the couch. He turned to Brian as he came around the couch, sat down next to him, and then kept moving down, his head burying itself into Justin’s lap. Justin wove his fingers through Brian’s hair. “How you doing there?” Justin asked, and gasped as he felt Brian mouth against his soft penis, which wasn’t remaining in its acquiescent state by any means, not with that hot breath steaming through the fabric. “Brian…”

“Ask me after,” Brian said. 

***

After, Justin didn’t ask him anything, just enjoyed the pleasant hum coursing through his sated body. Brian had made love to him, slow and sweet; and sure, Justin knew he’d never call it that, would be fairly embarrassed or downright hostile if Justin put it in words, but that was exactly what it had been. Love-making. 

“Aren’t going to ask me?”

“Do you want me to?” 

“You’re going to anyway.”

Justin sighed, giving in, knowing now was not a time to fight this particular battle. “How you holding up there, honey?” He grinned widely at Brian with that last, enjoying the eye roll that answered him. He’d learned how to deflect getting drawn into Brian’s bullshit. It was as if the man couldn’t help himself.

Worked like a charm. One deflected Brian replied, “I suck.”

“I know.”

“This sucks. Better phrasing?”

“Phrasing yes, situation, no. All this does suck. What are you planning to do?” Finally, Justin turned serious. 

Brian rolled on his side, propped up his head on his hand, toyed with a strand of hair, spiky with sweat, that curled around Justin’s ear. “I don’t know. I don’t think this should be in the hands of a 13-year old. But is it right to make all these decisions that are going to affect him, without giving him a say? But, shit. He shouldn’t have to face this at all.”

“Well, true, he shouldn’t have gone through what Father Steven put him through. But giving him some say over what happens now, may just give him back some idea of control over his life. Over his bodily existence. And besides, it’s not all in his hands. He’s got you. And me. And Liam.” 

Brian snorted.

“Seriously, Brian. You’re handling this pretty well for the fact that the issues are pretty difficult. I’m proud of you.”

Brian made a face and turned away; Justin grinned, knowing his lover didn’t want him to see the blush that spread across his cheeks. 

***

Melanie stared at the man sitting across from her, his usual insolent lounge nowhere to be seen. Instead, he sat on the edge of the plush chair stiffly, leaning forward, staring at her and waiting. 

She’d been surprised when he had shown up at their door and replied to her explanation that Lindsay and Gus weren’t home, that he hadn’t wanted to see them. That was surprising enough. This was… well. He’d told her the situation with John, ending, “What can we do, legally? Without it ending up more of a trauma for John?”

He was holding himself stiffly, but this particular intensity was something she had only caught glimpses of; she had never been at the receiving end of an absolutely no-bullshit Brian. Even with that Kip lawsuit years back, Brian had played his games, sure, he knew it was serious, but he had never allowed her to see that it was being taken terribly seriously, even though she caught the same look she was now witnessing, out of the corner of her eye, when he hadn’t realized she’d been watching him. The look he wore in full view right now.

Maybe it was because this wasn’t about him. For himself, he could walk through fire, through hell, with that swagger that announced he wasn’t touched even as his bones turned to cinder. He’d be fucked if he ever let anyone know he could be touched, hurt. But if it were someone else…

That, that Brian couldn’t control. He couldn’t clamp down on someone else’s pain and give them the trick of imagined Teflon coating that was really a big lie. If no one knows, pain is one’s own secret. A masterful, beautiful, downright awe-inspiring lie, but in the end, just a cheap parlor trick. Melanie understood that particular trick. She never believed in the Kinney magic. It was all a cheap pose, as far as she had been concerned. 

But other people’s hurts… those, Brian couldn’t stand, couldn’t take, couldn’t bounce back. No wonder he resisted caring, she thought, looking at his carefully composed features, the tension shooting through his body. Her own muscles ached in sympathy, just looking at him. 

Well, this was surprising, coming to all these revelations about the asshole in such a short period. She was surprised he was putting himself out for his family, but there it was. She had been surprised he had put himself out for Justin. Hell, no one was more shocked than she when it became clear (she was probably the last to know, but then, this sure ruined her image of Brian, and what the fuck was she supposed to do with him when she couldn’t keep him in that neat little compartment she had constructed for him, and safely hate him from the distance?), when it became clear how much he loved his partner. Brian. Love. Who knew?

“Mel?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking.” Probably not about legalities, but tough shit, motherfucker. She almost snickered at the idea of how Brian would react if he could hear that one, but suppressed it. Brian couldn’t control HER, he never could, and she delighted in being the one person on whom his charm really didn’t work. “Well, the church has zero tolerance these days. You’d think it would be for moral reasons, but it’s not, it’s the…” she trailed off. “Well, that’s it, of course.”

Brian waited. He was no fool, never had been. Was as successful as he was, in fact, because he knew when to keep his mouth shut. How to draw people to him. 

Still, Melanie couldn’t help fucking with him, just a little. Yeah, she thought, not too nice of her, but she couldn’t help it. People thought she and Brian had a totally dysfunctional relationship, bullshit. It functioned just fine. But on wholly selfish terms, and never to the other’s primary benefit. She smiled again, this time allowing the grin out. 

“That’s a nasty smile there, Mel, want to share?”

“Well, I was going to say the church is really addressing the problem to avoid lawsuits. And people criticize American lawyers for forcing this kind of reform. You know what would happen in Italy if there was a rash of molesting priests? Absolutely nothing. They’d probably worry their rosaries, and trust the punishment to god since there’s not the same recourse to the law. And nothing would change.”

One eyebrow lazily rose at that. “That’s nice, but I need advice in this case, not an overview of the wonders of America’s legal system, which is pretty fucked up, but let’s take a raincheck on that, shall we? What about John?”

Melanie nodded, feeling some sort of old fire ignite in her. Hopefully, this signaled the tail end of those baby blues, thank god. And she had Brian to thank for it. Not that she would ever tell HIM that. But she wouldn’t forget, either. “Lawsuit, that’s the answer. From the situation you describe, and if you really want this to end now for John so he can get on with his life, it would be best for this Steven character to plea to a lesser charge, endangering the welfare of a minor or something, assault if you can manage that, even sexual assault, though his lawyer would fight that one. You need to have John’s statement on record, but avoid trial altogether. Will the other priest cooperate?”

“Yeah, I think so.” 

“The problem is, with zero tolerance, the endangering charge might force the church’s hand, and the sexual assault certainly would. But you do want Claire to press some sort of charges. Probably the best way to do it would be to get Steven to resign his commission or whatever the fuck they call it, then plead to the charge from the status of a lay person.”

“Believe me, this Steven guy is as far from a lay as you can get.”

Melanie shot him her death look; he had the compunction to not return the look with that insolent tongue-in-cheek thing. “You know what I mean, cut the bullshit. If you get Steven to go along with this, agree to a lesser charge, you’ve got a statement, and hopefully he’s only thinking of how he can weasel out of more jail time, thinking you’re only protecting John now, and not thinking of how John has around seven years to file a civil case, for which all statements made can be used. Of course, his lawyer will fill him in on that one. But any criminal defense attorney will point out that a year or two is better than ten. And then, John will have time to decide if he wants to push a civil case, until he’s about twenty. However, of course, it’ll be more difficult to get to the church’s money, since a cover up will be impossible to prove, and Steven won’t be jailed while still a priest. But it’s not impossible to get to the church’s wallet, if John should choose to proceed that way. OR he can settle now, and the church will do its damnedest to keep it quiet, pay him off, and put a no-tell clause in any settlement.” 

Brian flexed the fingers of his hands against each other, pressing the pads of his fingers together to form a steeple in front of his mouth as he considered all of this. “I don’t know if John’ll care about the money. Claire will…”

“Well, the best thing to do will be to convince Tom to hand back the inheritance. But to John, not to Claire. Unless Claire doesn’t mind looking like a for-shit mother?”

“Mine didn’t,” Brian answered compulsively, then pursed his lips.

“Neither did mine,” Melanie added, not knowing why she wanted to ease his embarrassment at that slip. Shit! That fucking Kinney charm… Nope, she had repellant, wouldn’t work on her. They looked at each other, assessing. “You want me to talk to my contact in the D.A.’s office?” Melanie asked, changing the subject quickly. “She’s very discreet.” 

Brian thought a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. They have to let Steven out on Monday. So something needs to be decided by then.”

“I’ll email her at home.” 

***

Liam called him as he was walking into the loft on return from speaking with Melanie; apparently John was bugging him to get over to the loft so he could kill more zombies or some such bullshit. He told Liam to let John know that Justin was out, but he could come over and kill all the zombies he wanted, wondering as he hung up why he hadn’t just let John take the damn thing with him. Hell, Justin had to be pried away from the tv set that morning. He was not going to compete with electronics for his lover’s attention.

He was helping himself to a beer and telling himself he really should be working when the loft door slid open and he could hear Jennifer’s voice following Justin into the loft. “But spending my sudden riches on my children is part of my privileges, honey…” They’d been out shopping apparently. Justin dumped a bunch of bags at the foot of the couch. Macy’s, Sak’s, some shoe store he’d never heard of, a bright fluorescent bag that he didn’t recognize. Well, shit, this did not bode well. More bag-man look for the boy. What was it with that generation, did they think their looks would last forever? Let’s see how unattractive we can make ourselves? Guess what, people? it goes. Make the best of it while you can. 

“It’s bad enough Brian wants to dress me up all the time. Besides, I do have my own money. You and him, Mom, sneaking behind my back to buy shit for me.”

“I never sneak,” Brian said from the kitchen, knowing Jennifer was rolling her eyes even though her back was to him.

Both of the people across the room jumped. “Shit! I didn’t know you were home.” 

“Hi, Brian, how are you?” Jennifer’s voice was all concern. She didn’t ask, but there was no doubt Justin had filled her in, at least on the funeral details. Brian tossed her a quick nod on his way to inspect the contents of the bags. “Fine,” he replied. “Shopping, again?”

Jennifer watched him cross the room, his eyes fixed on the bags, his long fingers reaching out to open them, pulling out a pair of sneakers Justin had insisted on buying and rolling his eyes. She was not fooled; the inspection was only an excuse to get into the same space as Justin. Those two were just… she watched, still slightly disturbed at recognizing her son as a man, not just that, a gay man, not just that, a sexually active gay man, not just that, a sexually realized gay man in a relationship with another who was his match. She wondered if she would ever really get used to it. Knowing that the power of her maternal relationship with her son could never compete… not even for attention. She wondered how it would be when Molly brought home a lover. Would it be different because she at least understood that? But it was more than just his homosexuality; it was as if she had melted out of the room when Brian turned to look at her son, and the formerly childlike face, a face she couldn’t help but see whenever she looked at this child of hers, turned up to his lover, an expression as far from childhood as you could get rising up into his eyes, his lips, in the slight flush under the skin. Nope, if that look crossed Molly’s face, Jennifer thought, it would be just as disturbing. I’m getting old, she thought. But who ever gets used to the idea of her child taking over the realm of adulthood? who ever gets used to the idea of mortality? 

“Yeah, I know,” Justin was saying as Brian stared at the bright red sneakers in his hand, then back at Justin. “It’s your fault for throwing the old ones away. If you had just waited for them to fall apart, maybe I wouldn’t have needed to replace them with a brand new pair.”

“I told you he’d hate them,” Jennifer reminded Justin. 

“My mom was quite delighted to remind me of how much you’d hate my choices, and then she wanted to pay for everything,” Justin snickered. “But like I told you,” he turned, speaking to Jennifer now, “I can pay for myself. I do have money of my own.” 

“I’m your mother, honey, we never get past wanting to take care of you, you know that.” 

She must have said the wrong thing, because Justin tensed up, and looked over at Brian, who reached out and pulled Justin back against his chest, kissing the top of his head, whispered something in his ear. The tense look evaporated from Justin’s face and he even looked vaguely annoyed, at Brian, not at her. But she still felt awful. Of course, not all mothers wanted to do whatever they could for their children. So impossible to fathom that fact, so easy to ignore what surely could not be the case. “So Brian,” Jennifer continued, needing to fix her faux pas, “Since this one seems to be abdicating his proper role of letting me pamper him, how ‘bout you?”

“Me?” The surprise was real; Jennifer almost chuckled, but stifled it. She actually liked Brian, unbelievable, but true. He was so easy… not in the way she had heard, but emotionally, once you learned the right buttons to push. For some reason, as Justin’s mother, ever since he’d actually fallen in love with her son, and she’d known pretty much the second he had actually tripped into the abyss, poor man, she had felt access to this singular power, knowing she had some sort of honored spot as the Lover’s Mother. Probably because his own mother had been such a shit. Jennifer was no fool; she took advantage. “Christmas is coming, what do you prefer? Prada? Gucci? Or even better, what do you say we take a weekend at a health spa? I’d ask Justin, but he’s so stubborn, he’d probably insist on paying his half. And then how would I satisfy my maternal urges? What do you say?” She was babbling, but she didn’t care; Brian’s eyes crinkled at the corners as amusement played over his face, and she felt very powerful, having erased his tension, if only for a moment. 

Justin couldn’t see Brian, though, with his back turned against his lover’s chest, and his head tucked under his chin. “Jesus, mom, what is this, you replacing me?”

“Now, now, your mother knows a good deal when she sees one,” Brian teased. It felt good, to let Jennifer play this game, to actually be included in the little family unit. When the two had walked in, before they’d realized Brian was there, he’d listened to that easy communication and had felt so outside of it, so isolated, as if he’d missed something huge. He had missed something huge, and he felt a sharp pang and hated it, hated it, wouldn’t allow it, self-pity was for losers, reality was to be accepted, not avoided. He’d taken a swig of beer, forcing himself to calm as he’d watched them. 

But Jennifer had somehow picked up on the sharp pang that had remained, somewhere in his mid-section. She couldn’t remove it, but as she spoke, its hard edges dulled. 

“Maybe a more expensive deal, but I know Brian would appreciate an all-expense paid vacation to a resort where they wrap you in mud, make you work out like an indentured servant, feed you rabbit food that wouldn’t keep a sparrow alive, then deep muscle massage you til you drop asleep, all on someone else’s dime. He knows how to call that ‘taking advantage’ even as the giver receives the joy of giving only mothers… some mothers, experience.” She knew to qualify it this time, and was repaid with that small smile Brian could produce, almost a real one. 

“See, Sunshine,” Brian said, his voice low so she had to strain to hear, “Your mother is selflessly trying to fill the void for your poor grieving lover. She knew all along I’d take everything I could from you. She just didn’t know it would end up being her, too.”

Jennifer snorted. “Oh, I knew. I just had to be sure I was being taken in by worthy hands.” And now I know I am, she thought, but she didn’t say that. Brian stared at her, thoughtfully, before a grin stretched at the corners of his mouth. 

Justin pulled away from the hands that were rubbing against his shoulders, stood back, looking from his mother to Brian, both of whom were now grinning like idiots. He hated feeling that the joke was at his expense. And he had wanted them to get along? “I’m not even going to try to understand either of you freaks. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some tasteless rags to go try on again…” He grabbed a bag and marched up to the bathroom. 

Jennifer picked up her purse and a Tiffany’s bag, which she had set down with the others she had carried in. “So. You okay, Brian?” She was serious this time.

“Yeah, fine… thanks for asking, Mother.” 

He’d dropped the “Taylor,” Jennifer noted with a thrill shooting in her stomach despite the sarcastic emphasis on that last word. “I’m not kidding about the spa,” was all she said, moving toward the door.

“Fine, but put your son on the bill and get us a room with a two-for-one mud bath, and we’ve got a deal.” She grimaced; he saw that. He laughed slightly. “You’d think you’d have gotten over that by now, we do live together. And you did walk in on…”

“Please do not remind me,” Jennifer interrupted, quickly moving to block the mental image of coming home from a conference a day early, and finding her son, who was only supposed to be turning on the lights she had forgotten to leave on to discourage burglars, her son naked on all fours on the rug of her living room, covered with an equally naked, sweaty Brian, clothes tossed everywhere… nope, nope, not gonna remember that one. “Seriously. You need anything…” She let it hang.

Brian moved to shut the door behind her. “Yeah… I appreciate that.” He looked away from her smile, suddenly overwhelmed, and banged the door shut. Turning back, he made his way into the bedroom, admiring Justin’s ass in the pair of fitted black trousers he’d taken out of the Macy’s bag. “Not bad,” he said, sitting on the bed to watch.

“Yeah, figured these would be okay… Can’t exactly wear them in the studio, though.” 

“John’s on his way over. Says he wants to quote, kick some zombie ass. Unquote.” 

Justin sighed deeply. “What is it about you Kinney men, you all want to play with me…” He turned, pulled the t-shirt over his head and tossed it aside, bounding across Brian’s body, straddling his hips, pinning Brian’s arms over his head. “How long?” he asked, running his tongue up the side of Brian’s neck, drawing out the goosebumps. 

“I don’t know.” Brian reached for the zipper on his pants. “Long enough.”


	11. Chapter XI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get tied up. (Not Justin... at least not in this story.)

“I want to put that fucker away.”

John’s face was set. 

Liam gestured with a hand. “He wakes up, this is the first thing he says.”

Justin looked over at Brian, who was frowning worriedly. “John,” Brian said, “Did you hear what I just told you? My friend Mel thinks we can set it up so you can sue…”

“No.” The boy’s face was set. “I want him to fry. Are we done here? Justin? Can we play another game?”

“Uh…” Justin glanced over at Brian, then back at John. “John, I think Brian’s worried that you’re not thinking clearly…”

“I’m thinking clearly for the first time in over a year,” John shot back at him. “You said you’d stand by my decision, didn’t you?” He had turned toward Brian again. The sudden defiance in his eye wavered, as he searched his uncle’s face.

Brian returned the look, cursing his family all over again. The kid had been terrified by that priest, and why? because John had known he would be thrown to the wolves, to his family’s sense of propriety, of keeping up appearances. Of duty and resentment. No one ever satisfied, everyone vaguely aware that they’d been sacrificed to bullshit, but either unwilling to acknowledge it, or too weak to do anything about it. And spent their lives justifying the decision to suffer, by spreading the misery around. Even to the most innocent, hardening all within reach into the good old family tradition. No one escapes. And if you got real troubles, well, shit, you think your family’s going to help you? More likely to ask what you did to deserve it. You feel bad? You don’t know what pain is, you don’t know what MY pain is, how I’ve suffered, and now you’re going to make my life worse by telling me your problems? Suck it up. Suffer. You’re on your own. It’s a hard world, better learn how hard as soon as you can. You think family’s ground for safety’s purchase? Think again.

Brian had made his nephew a promise, the promise he’d made himself. No More Bullshit. And it was about time the rest of the family – Claire, anyway – started understanding that Brian was just as bull-headed as the rest of them, but about the escape, not the trap. John was really asking him for help, for more than that damn priest, he was asking for something he didn’t know he even needed. A way out. He had no idea there was another way. Brian glanced over at Justin, his eyes pulled to his partner like a beacon. Justin’s eyes were filled with pain, pain and anger. Not the resignation Brian saw in his own eyes, every so often when he looked into the bathroom mirror early in the morning, before he’d fully woken up. Justin, his pole star. Who was now smiling at him slightly, sadly. But with a determination that Brian had never known until he had met him. 

“That’s right, your decision. We’ll try to lock the fucker up.” Brian’s gaze, locked firmly on John’s.

“You know, though,” Justin added, his voice cautious, “we can press charges, and he may still get off. There are no guarantees. And you may have to go through a trial, and a possible shit storm of publicity. For your attacker to get off.” Justin’s voice was bitter.

John stared over at him, started to say something, then shrugged. 

“What?” Justin asked. 

John shook his head, looked away.

“John, seriously, what?”

John pressed his lips together, then looked back. “You went through all that, though, right? The bashing? By that Hobbes guy? I looked it up on Liam’s computer last night, after he’d passed out.”

“Oh…” Liam looked sheepish. 

Justin shook his head at Liam, not his fault, then turned back to the boy. “Yeah, and it was that bad. I felt like a freak for a long time. Right in the eye of a storm of media.”

“Did you testify?”

“He pleaded guilty, so there was no real trial.”

John was silent for a moment. “Were you mad you didn’t?”

“John…” Liam started. 

But Justin cut him off. He knew what John was asking. “I was too freaked out to testify. Back then, I was just glad it was over, that I didn’t need to say anything. So no, I wasn’t mad. Not then. But now… sometimes I wonder if I’d said something publicly, if that bastard would have been strung up.” 

“Would you do it? Now, I mean? Looking back?”

“There’s no second guessing this, Jesus!” Brian swore. “Justin did what he had to do, it’s a completely different situation. Hobbes pleaded guilty. The judge was a homophobic prick. Child molestation is a whole different league as far as assholes like those judges are concerned, they don’t shrug at it the way we… the way Justin got shrugged off.” 

John turned a curious eye to Brian. “Did you testify? That attorney called YOU a child molester.” 

“John…” Justin began, seeing the look crossing Brian’s face. 

“No.” Brian’s voice was much calmer than it had been a moment ago. “Do you see, John, this is what I’m talking about. You saw those reports? That’s what it’s going to be like. Only, it won’t be about me, it’ll be about you. How will you like having articles in the paper questioning whether you asked to be raped because you let a man you liked take you to a ball game?”

“Brian…” Liam spluttered.

But John was shaking his head. “Okay, okay. I get it. I didn’t mean, I mean…” He blushed. “I know you’re not a child molester.”

“I know you know.”

“So maybe Father Steven’ll plead guilty.”

Brian took a deep breath. “Hobbes was arrested in the act. This is different. And… you’re on record of having done this before. Made an accusation. A false one.”

“But…” John’s eyes widened. “But, I did that, just ’cause of Father Steven, I mean, I know you didn’t, but…” 

Brian shook his head. “This is what I mean, John. I don’t want to scare you, and I don’t want you to think we don’t believe you. We know what happened. But this is what I’m saying. In a trial, the defense attorney will only want to win. And he won’t care about what the truth is. He’ll want everyone to think you’re a liar, and he’ll go for your blood.”

“So, because I did something stupid, he’ll say nothing happened. And because I accused you, they’ll believe him.” 

“Father Tom has a confession,” Justin added, thanking god the subject of his bashing was past, but wishing they could get away from this one. For fuck’s sake, John was in tears. 

“Yeah. Father Tom. Has a confession. That’s protected by law from being divulged,” Liam reminded them. “Can’t use confessions to priests.”

John’s face had been darting between them all, slowly crumpling from its defiant expression, into plain old pain. “So,” he finally said. “It’s gonna be complicated. And even if we get him on trial, people’ll probably know it’s me. And they’ll know I’m a liar. Because of the last time this happened. I’m sorry, Uncle Brian, I really shouldn’t have… I just…” He trailed off.

“I’d like to tell you better news,” Brian answered, gruffly. He thanked god his cell phone saved him from having to say anything more. What John did wasn’t okay, not by a long shot, but this particular repercussion was pretty severe. “Kinney… Yeah, fine, we’re here.” He turned to the others after ending the call. “Your mom and Tom are on the way over.”

***

“Hi, John.”

“Mom,” John mumbled his reply, not wanting to look at her. 

Claire came around the sofa, to squat down in front of where her son sat. “Honey, I am so sorry, I really am…”

“You say that all the time!” John exploded. “Why can’t you just not have to say it in the first place!!”

Brian turned away, but not before Justin saw the look of pain that crossed his face. Justin moved closer to him, squeezed his hand. “You okay?” he whispered.

“Fine, just… flashback,” Brian answered, turning toward Tom, but not dropping Justin’s hand. “How’s it hanging, padre? Or,” he added, glancing over to John to make sure he was still listening to his mother’s hissing pleas, “is that only a question for padre Steve?”

Tom did not respond to that. Smart man, Brian thought. Rude, but the alternative would be to punch the man. Sarcasm worked better. Justin squeezed his hand. 

“We think we came up with a solution,” Tom said, his voice pitched low. 

“Hey, John, the father wants to talk to you,” Brian called, rescuing John from responding to Claire’s sobs. God, that woman just did not change.

John extracted himself, and walked over toward the kitchen counter. “Yeah?” he asked Tom. 

“We…” Tom began, glancing over at Claire, who had moved to join them. “We think we have a solution.”

“I want the fucker to burn,” John said. He was angry again. Good, Brian thought. 

“John!” Claire exclaimed.

“Oh, cut it out, for Christ’s sake, Claire, the kid has a right to call that asshole whatever he wants! you’re going to keep up these forms of propriety when all this bullshit is going on! Where the fuck are your priorities?” Brian made himself shut up. This was about John… but it wasn’t. He felt Justin’s hand slip out of his, move to his back, begin rubbing soothing circles. Damn it, this was getting ridiculous; he reached behind his back, grabbed Justin’s hand, and threw it back at him. Justin only raised an eyebrow, and moved away. But not too far. Shit, Brian thought, sometimes this emotional closeness was just fucking annoying. 

“I want the fucker to burn,” John repeated. He had moved around the kitchen counter, and stood closer to Justin and his uncle. 

Tom sighed. “We’re still worried about a trial. Neither Claire nor I think that’s a good idea…”

“We’re all in agreement on that,” Liam added. Brian shot him a look. “Brian, we have to figure this out. Find some common ground, so, John, we can do what’s best for you.”

John looked at Liam, then up at Brian, and finally his eyes fastened on Tom. “Do you think it’s still in my best interest to just shut up?”

“No. No, John, and I apologize deeply for doing the wrong thing. I thought… well, clearly, I wasn’t thinking. I was thinking about the scandal, and how it would affect you, and I wasn’t considering other issues. But, I want you to know, I spoke to my brother, he’s the headmaster up at Henley School, outside Philadelphia. Beautiful school, has a great sports program. The students go on to the best colleges in the country. Your mother and I thought… we thought we would honor your grandmother’s will to hand the house and her estate over to me, but then I’ll put it all in trust for your education. And if you want, you can go to boarding school, at Henley. You’ll be close enough to home to visit when you want, but it’s far enough away, that if you want to go through a trial…” 

“I don’t want to go through a trial. But I will. I will.” The last was not spoken as firmly as it had been when he first showed up, if the distinct tremble in his voice was any indication. 

Silence. Very long. Finally, Tom broke it. “Okay. What do you say about setting up an interview at Henley?”

“Me and Peter,” John answered. 

“Peter…” Claire spoke up. “But…”

“Peter’s smarter even than me,” John said. “He deserves a good education just like me. If you’re gonna set up an educational fund, I want it for both of us.” His lower lip jutted out. He looked as young as he was.

Claire studied her son’s face, then turned to her brother, and the priest. “Okay, then. I want part of that trust you’re going to set up for my son to go to therapy for him. And I want all this in writing.”

Justin watched Brian nod, and Tom along with him. Man, he thought, he would never get a fix on that woman. He felt Brian’s hand move onto his shoulder, squeezing it. Guess the earlier storm of annoyance was over. Justin sighed. Some days he didn’t think he’d manage to understand any of the Kinneys.

***

“So, do you think John’ll be okay?” Michael asked, huffing with the weight of the box he was carrying through the loft door. Brian gestured across the room to the living area, where Justin was putting his box down in the splash of sunlight washing through the room. 

“I don’t know,” Brian asked, watching Justin bend over to open the box, pull out that damn purple stuffed animal from his childhood, and threw Boo-Boo across the space. Brian caught the thing deftly, placed it on the back of the couch, stood back. “Doesn’t quite match the decor.” Justin smirked, and turned to the box Michael had put down, yanking the duct tape off to dig into the next box. 

“Uncle Mike’s moved down from Boston for a while to stay with Claire, and pull John through this. They think that fucker may plead down, but the D.A.’s going to try to make sure part of the charge includes sexual offender status. But who the hell knows.” Brian paused, then continued, “John seems… I have no fucking idea. He was such a little ass before all this. Not sure what to compare this version of him to.” Subdued, but no longer a shit. Was that good? Brian had no idea.

“Well, as bad as it is, maybe it’s good that he has something to turn his energy toward. Too bad it took something that awful to do it,” Michael added, eyeing the armful of baby books that Justin was dragging out of the box. 

“Yeah, well, hopefully this new school he’s going to look at will give him a better direction.”

“They arraigned the guy, though, right?” Michael continued. Then he smirked, distracted by something on the page of the book Justin was holding up toward him. A big grin spreading across his face. The book cover faced Brian, who barked, “Hey! What are you looking at?”

Justin turned the book to face him, and a picture of baby Brian, stomach down on a blue blanket, butt naked, a big baby smile as he looked up to the camera, stared back at him. Brian smiled back. “Yup, gorgeous from day one.”

“Ugh,” Michael groaned. “That’s it. You guys are coming over later, right?” he asked, heading to the door. 

“For tofu a la Ben?” Brian grimaced.

“We’ll be there,” Justin seconded, his attention firmly on Brian’s baby picture.

“And,” Brian added, vaulting over the back of the couch and crowding up to Justin’s side, “if I had been showing my other side, you would see my impressive frontal ass…ets as well.” 

Justin turned his “ha” face up for a moment, and Brian leaned into him, pressing him back against the couch, kissing him deeply. 

The baby books were forgotten.

***

Until later that night. Brian was busy rolling a joint, after returning from Ben and Mikey’s. Imagine that, he returned to his loft with his boyfriend after being at his best friend’s with his husband, so frickin’ domestic for god’s sake, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t gotten trashed but that was after all why he sat here rolling this joint, to forget about all that fucking domesticity, and even worse, how he was actually looking forward to a quiet night all alone with his fucking domestic partner, or fucking his domestic partner. 

Whatever. 

“Hey, Brian,” Justin called. He sounded troubled. 

“Yeah.” 

“Come here.”

Brian lighted the joint, and wandered over in a puff of smoke. Justin took the proffered weed, inhaled sharply, and said on the exhale, “I’m not sure I should be reading this…” 

“What?” He glanced down to a page filled with Joan’s tight handwriting. He’d assumed it had been all inoculation records, report cards, all that lovely shit that meant nothing. 

“Do you know your mom kept like a diary in your books?”

Brian felt his stomach sink. Oh fucking hell, what was this? The funeral had been a week before. All the remnants were done with, the lawyers were on the legalities, the house was on the block, John and Peter were getting everything, good riddance. Justin handed the book over to Brian. “You should read it.”

Eyebrows up. “Do I want to?”

Justin shrugged. “I’m gonna go…” he gestured at the computer, moved to stand up.

Brian grabbed his arm, kept him firmly planted. “You want to read it, though, don’t you?”

“I think I read too much already,” Justin hedged, and Brian released him, watching him walk to the computer and not look at Brian. Justin sat down, not looking at him. Brian watched him boot up. Then he turned to the books. Shit.

***

“I started writing here because it’s the only place Jack won’t read. I had a journal and he ripped it to pieces, saying I was too critical of him, when I wasn’t. I just said I’d wish he’d respect me more. He hates that I go to church. But it’s not like I go to church religiously. I stay home plenty, at least I did when we were first married. Sometimes I wonder what happened. 

“Brian’s the smartest baby I have ever seen. I know, lots of mothers say that, but it’s true. He’s already making clear what he wants, and he figured out how to take the nipple off the bottle! That was it, I guess he wanted to switch to a cup. He’s so eager to grow up…”

Brian skimmed over stories of his childhood. The tone though. “Such a bright boy! Takes after his mother…” “He hugged me when I was crying because Jack was in the bar again, and even though he doesn’t understand, he wants me to feel better…” “He started talking today! Momma. Of course. Even Jack’s sarcasm about having a “momma’s boy” couldn’t make me unhappy.” 

And increasing references to the church. “I talked to Father John about Jack’s attitude… Brian’s becoming increasingly willful, I prayed for him…” “Easter services were lovely, Brian will make a lovely altar boy…” “Father John told me I can never divorce, but I already knew that. I shouldn’t have said anything, but after Brian’s visit to the hospital I didn’t know what else to do. I shouldn’t have even thought of divorce, but I was so angry. And what we give to the Lord through raising our children, well, I need Jack, I do, I can’t do this alone. He provides a good living. And he does his duty, just as I do mine.” 

And all the willfulness on Brian’s part, plainly, Brian could see as he read, in direct proportion to the increasing criticism of her husband and her reliance on the church. He sighed, and threw the second book down. They ended when he was ten, anyway. The other boxes had his stuff just thrown in them, not mounted in albums. And no more comments. He supposed Joan was too busy achieving Sainthood at that point, having given up on her willful son and hopeless husband. He looked over at Justin, and saw his eyes cut back to the screen, but not quite quick enough. 

“Justin.”

“Hm?”

“What did you think you shouldn’t read? It was that reference to me in the hospital, wasn’t it?”

“Hospital… no, it just seemed so personal.” Justin got up, began moving over to the couch. 

Well, obviously, he hadn’t read up to that part. Shit. Brian leaned forward, picked up the joint. “Can you bring me the whiskey?” Damn it. He was going to ask. Unless… Justin had developed the ability to sit back and let Brian come to him. Which he didn’t always do. This time Brian really wished Justin would push. 

Justin sat next to him on the couch, and handed him the bottle. And a glass. And moved a coaster in front of him. Brian smirked. “Thanks, dear.”

“Fuck you Brian, you yell at me for leaving water marks on the surface…”

“I don’t yell at you!” Brian barked, far too loudly for someone who didn’t yell. “Shit.” He turned to the whiskey, eschewing the glass, and drank straight from the bottle. He put it down, to see Justin staring at him calmly. “What?”

“Tell me about the hospital.”

Brian stared at him, as Justin crept closer, until they were hip to hip, then he flung his leg over Brian’s thigh, his arm around his shoulder, nuzzled his neck. 

“Why are you so good to me?” Brian practically whispered. Because he didn’t want to yell. 

“What do you mean?” Lips on jawline now. 

“I’ve been an absolute shit to you.”

“You have been wonderful to me.”

“Yeah, talk about mixed messages.”

“The good outweighs the bad.”

“Think that’s what my mother said to herself?” Well, shit, where did that come from?

Justin pulled his head back, but kept his limbs draped over Brian’s body. He stared at him. “Did she say that? Is that something she wrote?”

“Not in so many words. More like, he provides for us. But that’s about as positive as it got.”

“You do more than provide for me, Brian.” Back to the soft kisses, moving down the neck. 

“Hmph.”

“Well, just look at tonight. Right now, you’re about to make love to me… even after I’ve dragged you to a dinner party, where you make good conversation, and you listen to Michael and me talk shop while you and Ben roll your eyes at each other behind our backs but you don’t say anything directly…”

“Caught that one, did you?” Brian put his long fingers onto Justin’s jaw, and raised his head, stared down into the luminous blue, moved to kiss him, end this conversation. It was enough, was about to become too much. But Justin put his hand up between their lips, shivering when Brian’s tongue came out to trace circles in his palm, his soft lips touching lightly against the skin. 

“What happened to put you in the hospital? That’s when you got Boo-Boo, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…” Brian leaned back, and sighed. “Jack always drank a lot. He didn’t know his strength when he was drunk, and that you don’t wrestle a four year old when you’ve had one too many. Cracked my head open.”

“Oh, my god. Were you all right?”

“No, I died,” Brian retorted, leaning forward and grabbing the bottle again. Justin smacked him with the back of his hand, leaned back, and moved his foot up into Brian’s lap, wiggling the toes. “Did your dad hit you a lot? When he was drinking?”

Brian wrinkled his brow. “Are you kidding? After my mother spent the rest of his life castigating him for that little incident every time they fought? Every fucking time. I would sit in my bedroom and listen to her list every fault he had, prominently featuring that time with my split skull, and him yell back that Jesus must love her catering, since he never got any, and she was going to ruin me, and he was going to ruin her brilliant future priest…” 

“Priest?!” Justin exploded, his foot digging down.

“Ow! watch that, Sunshine,” Brian said, picking up Justin’s foot, massaging the instep. Justin leaned back, groaning. Brian told himself he continued because Justin wouldn’t just let him off without telling him all, but part of him wanted Justin to know, anyway. “Jack didn’t beat me, nothing like that. He didn’t have to. He’d make fun of me when I came to the bar where he hung out with his cronies, called me ‘Momma’s boy,’ they all ended up doing it. Telling me I was a scrawny little shit, never amount to anything. I had an average of 95 in high school, Jack was always telling me how he’d gotten better grades. Everything was a competition. And when he was drunk, he’d grab me and compare muscles, then push me away, sometimes I’d hit the wall. Shit like that, those bruises I could deal with. Then he’d tell me if I weren’t such a scrawny shit, I wouldn’t get hurt like that. And then he’d apologize when he sobered up. I stopped listening to the apologies. Every night, my dad would come home drunk, and my mom would start screaming. Claire would sneak out to get drunk with her friends. I went up in my room and studied. And every night I would mark off the days until I went away to school. I started at 1,485.” Brian took a swallow of his whiskey. 

There was a long silence. Then Justin said, “I’m sorry, Brian.” 

Brian turned his head sharply. Well, shit, he’d almost forgotten he was there. “Not your fault.”

“I can feel bad you went through that.”

Brian shrugged. “It made me who I am, for better or… better and worse.” He squeezed Justin’s foot, put it down, then reached over and hauled his lover across his thighs. “Much better than the foot,” Brian grinned, as Justin wiggled his ass into the contours of Brian’s lap, and Brian slipped his hands under Justin’s shirt, onto the smooth flesh of his back.

“My mom’s invited us to dinner…” 

Brian groaned. “First the couples’ dinner with Mikey, now what, Sunday night dinner with Mom?”

“Hm… couples… calling your lover’s mother Mom… and with only a smidge of sarcasm… I may have to make it official.”

“You made it official the night I met you. It just took me a while to catch up,” Brian replied. “And you can tell *Mom* we’d love to come to dinner.” He moved forward, to catch the lips parting in surprise with his own. Justin’s reply was muffled; Brian thought he might be trying to say ‘what the fuck,’ and would have laughed at the reaction, but he was too busy with other things. 

Gotta keep the boy off balance. Or maybe he was feeling somewhat more free than he had this time a week ago. Maybe.

Whatever. 

At the moment, he had much better things to think about.

THE END


End file.
